Downtown Honolulu’s character is changing to include residences and day-into-night activities, but it won’t be quick, and it’s not likely to be completely predictable, as shifting plans for redevelopment are already altering expectations.

Changes for the better have already come to pass — including the opening of 112-room hotel AC Honolulu at 1111 Bishop Street, with its trendy “speakeasy” lounge and focus on nearby urban attractions, and retail chain DAISO with its Japanese-inspired household goods and novelty items at the corner of Hotel Street and Fort Street Mall.

On the other hand, entrepreneurship and development in Honolulu is tricky. Costs are high, and permitting and planning issues can stretch out the waiting period for beginning work on a project for months or years. At 103 N. Hotel St. in Chinatown, a hotel conversion for the historic Wo Fat Building seems to have stopped in its tracks, although its developers once projected it would open in 2023 or 2024. And following a multi-day power outage that caused significant losses for many downtown businesses, the fanciful, popular Lei Stand restaurant on Bethel Street shut down on June 29.

Despite the hurdles, Christine Camp, CEO of Avalon Group, which has purchased the Walmart, Davies Pacific Center and most recently, the Topa Financial Center downtown, predicts investments will continue in downtown properties, and that they will pay off. She told the Star-Advertiser that investors are funding several new and pending projects Downtown and in Chinatown, with a value of $1.8 billion.

However, Camp also said Avalon’s plans for the Davies Pacific Center — targeted for a residential conversion when purchased in early 2023 — have already changed. As the developer faced delays in permitting for converting the office building to residences, Avalon decided to “pivot,” Camp said, halting advance sales on residential condominiums.

Now, it’s a tower at the Topa Center, purchased in late 2024, that Avalon is touting as a partial conversion — expecting an easier time with permitting now that the Honolulu City Council has passed Bill 51, which allows residential use in commercial-zoned areas.

Property owners in Downtown/Chinatown are undoubtedly thirsty for change. The pandemic hit Downtown and Chinatown hard, leading to unprecedented vacancies in urban office buildings and forcing the closure of a lamentable 25% of small businesses in the area. Property values remain high, however, and in the pandemic’s aftermath, small business owners and investors/developers set their sights on the location.

Hawaii Pacific University (HPU), based at Aloha Tower, has a stake in Fort Street Mall’s evolution as a safe and thriving urban hub; it’s renovating a four-story building on Fort Street Mall as its Science Hall. Plans are also in the making for a hotel near Chinatown’s future Skyline station on Nimitz Highway. The prospects for a pedestrian-oriented paradise have long existed here. With that in mind, the Avalon Group is remaking Downtown’s former Walmart building as a mixed development, with entertainment, retail and residences. Six pickleball courts will be the first attraction. Avalon also plans to build about 100 residences on top of the existing parking garage. Signs on the building include a new nickname for the area: “DoHo.”

Topa, with two 20-story office towers, is bounded by Bishop Street, Nimitz Highway and Fort Street Mall. Camp said the tower facing Bishop Street will remain a “class-A office building,” while the tower fronting Fort Street Mall will be redeveloped.

To make it all work, the owners and operators will need to keep the area bustling into the evening hours, reversing a pandemic-era perception that Downtown is “dead.” According to city officials, downtown stakeholders are preparing to do just that, forming a downtown improvement district that funds staff, perhaps “ambassadors” like those retained by the Waikiki Improvement District Association to keep sidewalks clean and visitors feeling safe.

This attention to the street-level experience Downtown is a must, if a revival is to occur.