Ward Centre will be closing its doors for the final time Tuesday. The shopping center's four-decade-long legacy is concluding as developer Howard Hughes Corp. moves forward with the plan to construct two luxury condominiums at the Kakaʻako location.
The property will become part of the continued expansion of Ward Village and will reduce the 80,000 square feet of retail space. Several longtime businesses relocated or permanently closed as the center prepared for demolition.
HPR went down to Ward during its final days to capture how shoppers feel about the closure, and the new construction to come.
“I really feel like something significant is being lost from the city with it being taken down,” Jake Stowe told HPR. Stowe was a regular at The Box Jelly, a popular co-working space on the second floor. He said that Ward Centre helped him find community here in Hawai’i.
Alliyah Gabriel recalls going to Ward as a child to watch movies and shop with her family. “My most fondest memory of Ward Center in general was going to the theater. When we were kids, we used to collect the tickets. I still have all those tickets,” Gabriel said.
Other long term residents have watched the Ward area change over time, including Kainoa Gruspe, who was manning the register at Kīpuka.
“Yeah, just gonna miss this area as it was,” Gruspe said. “ It's already passed, actually. It's kind of been, changed and passed, how I remember it and have loved it, and I feel like it's kind of gone now already, so yeah. The heartbreak has, uh... I've had it and maybe gotten over it by now, but change is a part of everything.”
Shanan Seamster, who has been coming to Ward since she was old enough to walk, also expressed sadness at the way the place has changed.
“I mean I get it, I get it, but progress for progress's sake is not necessarily the way to go sometimes. Sometimes you kinda gotta hold onto the old stuff. I'm sure there's a lot of people that can argue the other side, but it's just, it's just sad. You don't see a lot of the old stuff anymore,” Seamster said.
The new Ward Village is set to be complete in 2030, where developers hope the redesign of Ala Moana Boulevard will foster community in downtown Honolulu. However, many are still mourning the community they found in the old Ward Centre.
