City Council ready to move on sprinkler law

By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer

A year after one of the costliest high-rise fires in Honolulu history, the city council is prepared to require sprinkler systems be retrofitted into about 30 high-rise business buildings erected before a 1975 sprinkler law went into effect, the council's chairman said.

Dr. Dennis Momyer moved back into his 15th floor chiropractic office in the First Interstate Building early in March. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

It took 125 firefighters nearly four hours to control the fire, which caused an estimated $10 million in damage to the building and $2 million to its contents.

"I think we are going to move ahead and by the end of summer we should have a retrofit law requiring those business buildings to be retrofitted," City Council Chairman Jon Yoshimura said in an interview this week.

Yoshimura said a task force had been studying the issue for months, and that he believed a City Council majority would support requiring sprinkler retrofitting for business high-rise buildings.

He said City Councilman John Henry Felix has been overseeing the research on the issue.

"Whether we should also require retrofitting of more than 300 high rise residential condominiums, which the fire department strongly advocates, is another question," the chairman said.

Owners of offices in the 16-story Interstate Building at 1314 South King Street had an informational meeting Wednesday to learn about the possibility of retrofitting with a sprinkler system.

Building manager Cal Oki said owners are contemplating the sprinkler issue, but "it's a high cost, anywhere from about $750,000 to sprinkler the entire building."

"The association is taking it up at the next annual meeting (in May) and is going to be voting on it," Oki said.

While the debate about sprinklers continues, the damage at the Interstate lingers. There is still the faintest sour smell of smoke in the elevators from the mysterious fire which gutted the topmost 16th floor, seriously damaged the next two lower floors and sent smoke and water from fire hoses down several more floors.

Fire investigators said they believe an electrical problem caused the fire, but finally said the cause was "undetermined."

Eleven firefighters were injured battling the seven-alarm blaze that originated in the Honolulu Puka Shell Exchange on the 16th floor. The fire affected the operations of 130 businesses, displacing roughly 20 of them.

The 16th floor windows, some of them blown out by the intense heat, are still boarded up with plywood sheets, and there is a tent covering a 30-by-30-foot chunk of the roof where repairs are about to be completed.

But the other floors are about to return to business as usual, and many tenants are ready to celebrate.

In the renovated 15th floor offices of chiropractor Dennis Momyer, carpet glue — rather than smoke — is the dominant fragrance.

Momyer and colleagues are celebrating their return at an open house Saturday from noon to 3 p.m.

"The fire forced the relocation of most of the tenants on the top six floors, causing much hardship to those affected," he said.

Momyer rented space in a building next door and was back in business four days after the fire.

Ceilings, carpets and walls were ruined for some, and telephone and elevator service were disrupted. The elevators still have not been completely repaired, and will not be until the fall, according to Ed Irvine, tenant coordinator for Rider Hunt Levitt and Bailey, the project consultant on the work.

One of the three elevators to the office section of the building was severely damaged in the fire, and still remains closed. When work on the elevator is complete, probably in June, the other two will be renovated, resulting in virtually an entirely new elevator system by October, Irvine said.

J. S. Aloha Travel Agency at first planned to leave the building. "We were walking up 13 flights of stairs every day, and some of the people were getting sick from the smell of the smoke," vice president Mel Shinsato said.

Then "we decided to stay; we have some good clientele in the building," Shinsato said. The firm was able to move within the same building, on the sixth floor.

"Of course it was supposed to be a temporary situation, just two or three months," he said.

But estimating and negotiations weren't finished until October, when contractor J. Kadowaki began most of the work.

"We're moving back in this weekend, April Fool's Day, unless the contractor is fooling us," Shinsato said.

"Everything is brand new, and that's one of the reasons my wife wanted to move back in," he said.

J. Hans Strasser, chairman of Hotelmark Corp. on the 12th floor, moved his business to the Kahala Mandarin Oriental Hotel temporarily, but quickly moved back into the severely damaged space, where he also serves as honorary consul for Austria, and waited out the repairs.

Calvin Oki, building manager, said the 16th-floor work should be completed in another month.

Honolulu Puka Shell Exchange company which occupies the largest space on the 16th floor, and in whose premises the fire apparently started, is expected to return to the space.

But one of the major tenants, First Hawaiian Bank, moved out of its 8,000 square feet of space on the first floor for good. Nobody has chosen to rent there, Oki said.