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The (New) International Marketplace Opens

Nick Yee
Nick Yee
Nick Yee
Credit Nick Yee
Seating

The International marketplace in Waik?k? opens today as a re-imagined shopping mall.

The $500-million, three level renovation is anchored by Sacks Fifth Avenue and took two years to complete.  75 retail stores and 10 restaurants are folded into a complex of nearly 350 thousand square feet.

But those with memories of the old marketplace may be disappointed.  The Waik?k? chic of the former marketplace has been almost entirely replaced with long concrete walkways, which break into smaller gardens.  The small stands selling cheap jewelry, fake ukulele, and Zippo lighters have been replaced with many shops making their Hawaii Debut.

Nick Yee
Credit Nick Yee
The Banyan Tree
Nick Yee
Credit Nick Yee
The Treehouse Museum

The design did spare the banyan tree in the heart of the mall… changing its iconic treehouse into a miniature museum, and there are a few nods to the space’s Hawaiian roots.  International Marketplace General Manager Michael Fenley says the spot will become a gathering place for both tourists as well as locals.

Only half of the shops and restaurants are opening with the mall today… but officials expect the complex to be filled in by next fall.

Nick Yee’s passion for music developed at an early age, as he collected jazz and rock records pulled from dusty locations while growing up in both Southern California and Honolulu. In college he started DJing around Honolulu, playing Jazz and Bossa Nova sets at various lounges and clubs under the name dj mr.nick. He started to incorporate Downtempo, House and Breaks into his sets as his popularity grew, eventually getting DJ residences at different Chinatown locations. To this day, he is a fixture in the Honolulu underground club scene, where his live sets are famous for being able to link musical and cultural boundaries, starting mellow and building the audience into a frenzy while steering free of mainstream clichés.
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