A recent vote by the Honolulu City Council canceled plans to relocate two city agencies to a building in the heart of Chinatown. That set back hopes for new economic development for the area.
Architect Dean Sakamoto says he believed Chinatown was poised for new economic development when the City and County of Honolulu signed a lease for three floors in his building on North King Street.
His architecture firm and a nonprofit occupy the first floor of the King Liberty Center. The plan was to locate two city agencies on the three floors above, putting dozens of city workers in an area that the city has talked about revitalizing for years.
Sakamoto had been working on plans for Chinatown for more than a decade. And he founded the nonprofit SHADE Group to help accelerate Chinatown’s revitalization. But those hopes were dashed over the summer when the City Council voted to axe the budget for the Office of Economic Revitalization.
Now Sakamoto is thinking of pivoting SHADE's focus away from Chinatown to a different cause to keep it running.
He says he worked directly with Mayor Rick Blangiardi on the plan to move the city workers to Chinatown. The mayor issued a strong statement after the council vote, laying blame on some councilmembers.
But Blangiardi now believes another property on the other side of the district will have the biggest impact on the revitalization of Chinatown.
Last month, the government of Taiwan told the city it plans to demolish its aging Chinatown Cultural Plaza. It gave the businesses there until March 31st to move out. Blangiardi says the plan is to turn the four-acre property on Beretania Street into a mixed-use development that will include housing and commercial space.
The mayor says he believes the project will be the catalyst for Chinatown and … a driving force for redevelopment in downtown Honolulu.
