Bigger isn't necessarily better
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer
Some items may not be exactly to scale.
In fact, more and more new buildings in Honolulu don't fit our Island scale at all. They seem to just get plopped down in our midst by some Brobdingnagian builder who can't even see all the little folks who already call the neighborhood home.
The latest example of this outsized behavior is the new theater and entertainment complex opening tomorrow in Kaka'ako. The Ward Entertainment Center overpowers its neighbors like the Space Shuttle outpaces the Spirit of St. Louis.
Partly this is a function of economics: Developers want to get the most bang for their bucks when they put up a new building.
That helps explain why the seven-story Ward building is pushed right up to its legal limits on every side and you could fit both the Mililani and Koko Marina theater complexes inside the new theater space.
Partly it's a matter of ego: Developers want to capture attention, and nothing says big so much as Super Size that, please.
How else do you explain that scrunched-up stairway entrance, which really needs to cover twice as much ground to be truly grand? How else do you explain the carnival-style canopy pinched on all sides by walls?
This is hardly the first case of a new building in Honolulu that is too big for its boots. I first noticed the trend about a decade ago when a hulking storage facility went up on the site of the old Oasis nightclub on Wai'alae Avenue, by the H-1 Freeway where everyone in town couldn't help but notice.
The Hawai'i Convention Center is another example. It's a fine-looking building, but it would look a lot better with the surrounding open space offered by, say, the South Kohala Coast.
We all knew that the building didn't belong on that site, but the politicians knew better. No wonder Mayor Harris now plans to knock down some neighboring buildings to make a park.
Private homes, religious sites and government facilities aren't immune from this trend, either. Somewhere along the line, Kahala went from a ritzy kama'aina neighborhood to a stretch of McMansions. Now the trend to build Starter Castles or Sports Utility Homes has spread up every Honolulu hillside and into the suburbs.
Sometimes common sense — and zoning laws — prevail. That's why the city is chopping five feet off the top of the new Hanauma Bay education center, and a judge recently ordered the Korean Buddhist Temple in P?lolo Valley to whack 6.2 feet off its top.
All too often, though, the big buildings just keep coming. Big begets bigger and pretty soon nothing is left in the same human scale that has served us so well for so long.
Mike Leidemann's columns appears Thursdays and Saturdays in the Advertiser. Call him at 525-5460 or send e-mail to mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.
