When HPR last spoke to Avalon Group CEO Christine Camp, she had just closed in on the Topa Financial Center towers, her latest downtown acquisition.
She had also bought the Walmart space with the idea to turn it into pickleball courts and a social space to breathe new life into the neighborhood.
Pickles at Forté opened in January and recently expanded its hours. The Conversation stopped by on a recent afternoon and spoke with some pickleball aficionados.
"It's an awesome location. It's right in downtown. It's convenient, I think, for most people to play here," said Dayton, who drives to the courts from Kahaluʻu. "It's got AC, furniture, TVs, everything you need, pickleball, food, yeah, easy to hang out here all day, for sure."
He said he would support creating a business improvement district to improve safety in the area.
Martina Kostalova, director of operations at the indoor pickleball court, said the space has brought paying customers to the downtown area, with many taking advantage of the extended hours.
"We are open until midnight on the weekdays, 10 p.m. on the weekends, but we are basically busy until midnight," Kostalova said. "It's a mostly young crowd. Before we even opened, we asked people, and basically they told us that the only reason they used to stop on public courts was because the lights went out at 10 p.m., and they would totally stay until midnight, and they do."
Pickles at Forté will play host to two town halls this week to discuss the business improvement district plan: Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. and Thursday at 5:30 p.m.
HPR caught up with Avalon CEO Camp for a tour of the Forté rooftop, where she plans to create a court for padel, another racquet sport.
"It will be the first one on Oʻahu for public play," she said. "In the meantime, we'll be designing and working on building these apartments. Apartments will be studios, ones and twos, and the parking will be right here. So it will be very easy, and the residents here will enjoy the pickleball sports."
Over at the rooftop garden at the top of the Topa towers, Camp also shared what a business improvement district could mean for local businesses and the people who regularly spend time in the area.
"They've done it all over the mainland, but our prime example is Waikīkī," she said. "Some key leaders 20 years ago decided that this was time for the businesses to really take over and add services because status quo was not acceptable, and they were willing to pay to have those improvements and level of service that maybe the city, through their tax dollars, just weren't able to support, and it's been a huge success. So we know that it works. So we'd like to see this in downtown Honolulu."
This story aired on The Conversation on Aug. 11, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻiulani Coburn adapted this story for the web.
