Honolulu Councilmember Tyler Dos Santos-Tam represents the area that includes the downtown area and Chinatown. He joined The Conversation live on Wednesday morning to talk about squaring up with concerns about pushing the negative elements further into Chinatown as a result of a new law to create the Downtown Honolulu Business Improvement District.
"I want Chinatown to have a voice, and so simply sticking them together under the same umbrella wouldn't necessarily allow Chinatown to have the flexibility that it needs to do its own thing, which is why I think Chinatown should have its own separate business improvement district," he said. "They can work together, but I want Chinatown to have that voice in that process."
Dos Santos-Tam said he thinks that if the city can continue its work to clean up the area, Chinatown can become a 24-hour community.
"We're going to pick up the conversation about a Chinatown business improvement district, but that means reaching out to every single one of the property owners down here and educating them," he said. "That may mean meeting them where they're at, and having flyers in their language, and having meetings with some interpreters, just so everybody really understands what's at stake. But also on top of that, we've been meeting with the arts community.
"We're doing a tour of some of the leasable spaces with the artists, because they're looking for studio spaces. We want them to come down here. And if the artists are working into the evening, they have a day job, but they're doing their art in the evening. They're here on the street, being part of the community. There's all these moving pieces that we have to bring together, but we will."
The new downtown “BID” covers much of the area from Nuʻuanu Avenue over to Richards Street, bounded by Beretania Street on the mauka side and Nimitz Highway on the makai side — plus the block containing the Hawaiʻi State Federal Credit Union building.
This story aired on The Conversation on Oct. 22, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m.
