The exotic birds are long gone and the jungle has reclaimed much of Paradise Park since the Manoa Valley visitor attraction closed in 1994. But new life — including manicured gardens, hula shows and luaus — could return to the site under a $15 million redevelopment plan by the park’s old operator.
Paradise Park Inc. has begun to implement pieces of a strategy to gradually re-establish the property as a visitor destination, with a long-term goal of attracting close to 400,000 tourists annually.
"I can visualize everything," said Darryl Wong, the company’s vice president. "It’s just all overgrown now. With the Hawaiian cultural theme, we expect to bring life back to this part of the valley that has been sitting idle for many years."
Elements of the revival plan, which is dubbed Paradise Park Presents The Hawaiian Cultural Center in Manoa Valley, include Native Hawaiian cultural displays, a descriptive history of the valley that includes a replica summer home of Queen Kaahumanu, a hula museum, hula shows and nine gardens with indigenous and nonindigenous plants.
James W.Y. Wong, the 91-year-old father of Darryl Wong who founded Paradise Park in 1968, said his goal is to help preserve and display elements of Hawaiian culture while making new use of the park property that includes a bamboo forest and ponds fed by underground springs.
As part of the plan, 52 invasive albizia trees will be removed, and existing buildings used for Paradise Park shows, such as a 300-seat covered amphitheater and aviaries, will be renovated and reused.
"I’m going to try and leave as much there as possible in its natural state," the elder Wong said.
Some Manoa residents, however, are concerned about potential noise and traffic.
Ellen Watson, a Manoa Neighborhood Board member, said cleaning up the park to re-establish a botanical garden is good but that a commercial attraction bringing busloads of visitors isn’t a proper fit for the neighborhood.
"Cleaning up the property — that’s all good because it’s all albizia trees and junk back there," she said. "If we’re hearing luau music till 10 p.m., it’s going to be a problem. We are a pretty quiet community."
Darryl Wong said Paradise Park Inc. is striving to be a good neighbor. The company, which may not bring in more than 24 tour buses a day under a 1993 limit imposed by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, will urge tour operators to use vehicles seating no more than 24 passengers. Operating hours will be between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m.
The company has garnered significant support from hula practitioners, artisans and some Hawaiian community leaders including Manu Boyd, Mapuana de Silva and Oswald Stender.
William Feltz, manager of the East-West Center Arts Program, said in a letter to DLNR that the park’s new plan would be a great addition to Oahu’s cultural life.
"I witnessed the development of the original property as a beautiful nature oasis, only minutes from urban Honolulu," he said. "It has been disappointing to witness the under-utilization and under-appreciation of this gem."
Rep. Isaac Choy (D, Manoa-Punahou-Moiliili) also expressed written support: "Having Manoa showcase their own ‘Polynesian Cultural Center,’ while promoting the special qualities of historic Manoa Valley, its cultural diversity and heritage, is a win-win for the community."
Last month, DLNR administratively approved changes to the park’s 1966 conditional use permit for two phases of the new master plan after concluding that they are not a different or greater land use under the permit that allows a botanical and zoological garden for recreational purposes. A third phase that includes an outdoor luau venue and a possible parking lot expansion has not been considered.
So far, Paradise Park Inc. has opened a gift shop that will lead to an area designated for the hula museum, and built a hula practice studio. Both operations are in a main four-story building that once featured a giant aviary and led into the park.
The building’s top floor and longtime home of Treetops Restaurant, which closed earlier this year, is being renovated by local food and entertainment entrepreneur Jim Boersema with changes featuring a buffet, bar and big stage for lunch and dinner hula shows.
A reborn Treetops is projected to open next month initially for only lunch.
"This was such a great place in the ’70s," Boersema said. "I’ve already got 2,000 people with reservations for December."
Other elements of an initial phase expected to be finished by the end of 2015 include a "hula garden" displaying flora important to Native Hawaiians for hula, an imu and restoration of a pond once used for duck shows.
A second phase with five more gardens and possibly taro planted in three connected ponds once filled with tilapia for fishing tournaments could be done in 2016. The third phase slated for 2017 would include the Kaahumanu replica house and an outdoor luau area.
Darryl Wong said the company intends to proceed gradually. "If phase one makes sense, then we’ll take on phase two and so on," he said. "There’s a lot of work to be done. The jungle takes things back pretty fast. This is 20 years of jungle unchecked. We just shut Paradise Park down and didn’t do anything."
Paradise Park was created by James Wong, a local accountant and real estate developer who saw an exotic-bird show called "Parrot Jungle" in Miami during a business trip and thought a similar show would do well in Hawaii where tourism was growing.
The park opened in 1968 on a small part of 152 acres leased from the Roman Catholic Church. Its run lasted 26 years, ending amid the early-1990s economic downturn after annual attendance had fallen to about 200,000 from a peak around 300,000.
After the shutdown, a variety of ideas to reuse the property, which includes a main 12-acre park site and two parking lots on part of an adjacent 35-acre parcel, have been pursued. Among the ideas were turning the property into a city park, a spiritual retreat, a wedding chapel and a University of Hawaii conservation biology research center.
In 2002, UH agreed to buy the property and announced plans for a "groundbreaking, standout" environmental research program expected to attract lucrative federal research grants.
But a year later then-Gov. Linda Lingle refused to release $5.5 million approved by the Legislature to buy the land and renovate buildings after citing concerns about paying for future maintenance. That left the land in Wong’s hands under his lease that ran to 2041.
In September, Wong bought the land from the church for $4.1 million.
The elder Wong said the idea to reopen the park was rekindled after he gave up ownership of Puck’s Alley in 2006 and moved the company’s offices from the retail complex in Moiliili to the old Paradise Park building.
Seeing heavy tourist traffic to nearby Manoa Falls and record visitor arrivals to the state in recent years helped convince Wong that reopening with a new theme was the right move.
