Name that park — for a fee
By Robbie Dingeman and Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writers
Imagine the Aloha Inc. Concert Hall or the Your Brand Name Here Tennis Complex in Central O'ahu. That's what City Council Chairman Donovan Dela Cruz envisions as a way to raise city revenue without charging residents higher fees.
Allowing corporate sponsors to attach their names to part of the Neal Blaisdell Center complex or some premier Honolulu parks for a fee would do just that, Dela Cruz said. For example, the tennis facility in Waipi'o could become Adidas Tennis Center at Central O'ahu Regional Park, he said.
The practice is increasingly common across the Mainland, particularly in conjunction with sports facilities in major metropolitan areas.
Dela Cruz said some "outside of the box" thinking is needed to help Honolulu through a budget crunch. He also has introduced bills to formally allow the city to charge for disc-golf tournaments in some botanical gardens and to allow others to pay to place private cell phone company antennas at city facilities.
He doesn't want to see the city rename every park after sponsors willing to pay but sees room for deals that he thinks would be OK with most residents.
Officials believe the idea merits discussion, but at Ala Moana Beach Park yesterday, residents and visitors reacted with a mixture of caution and revulsion.
"You should keep the Hawaiian names. If you start to give a place a commercial name, you start to lose its spirit. It just wouldn't feel right somehow," said Nicholas Oettenger, 23, a student from Zurich, Switzerland, who was writing postcards home under the shade of a coconut tree.
"You've got to keep the Hawaiian spirit. Old history is very important. Calling this AOL park instead of Ala Moana park wouldn't feel the same at all," he said.
Others sympathized with the city's need for money, but suggested it look elsewhere first.
"I understand the city's need for more money, but this just feels like they're selling out. Once you start doing this, where does it end? The public starts getting less and less control. It's a terrible idea. Let's keep public places public," said Cynthia Smith, a history teacher at Honolulu Community College.
'Pandora's box'
Waikiki resident Raymond Gruntz saw a slippery slope developing.
He figures the city could start with parks and auditoriums, then move to bus advertising and go downhill from there.
"Then it's going to be billboards," Gruntz said. "It's the beginning of Pandora's box if they do it."
As for Dela Cruz's other proposals, Paul Weissich of the Friends of the Honolulu Botanical Gardens, said disc golf has been going on at Ho'omaluhia Botanical Garden since 1990 and could be a creative way to raise money and attendance at the scenic glades.
"It's innocuous," Weissich said. "It's not connected to plant life or learning about tropical trees and shrubs, but it doesn't do any harm and makes people happy and it brings people into Ho'omaluhia," he said.
Weissich said it would be hard to argue against it being held at the Kailua end of the park, where there is enough space for 500 Boy Scouts to camp at one time.
Council Parks Committee Chairman Charles Djou praised Dela Cruz for creativity but wondered if Honolulu facilities could bring in the kind of money that would make the plan worthwhile.
"How much money is this really going to raise?" Djou asked. When Candlestick Park in California's Bay Area became 3Com Park, the company heard the name repeated regularly on national broadcasts.
But if the amount that sponsors would pay is negligible, "I'm not sure if it's really going to be worth it," Djou said.
Ballpark records indicate the company paid $500,000 to local authorities for the first six months of that contract and $3.9 million for a multiyear contract. And Dela Cruz noted that San Diego's City Council last month voted to rename the Sports Arena the ipayOne Center, where a discount real estate brokerage company will pay the operator of the arena $2.5 million, with the city getting 10 percent or $250,000.
Dela Cruz said the idea has possibilities. "It's like the Kodak Hula Show which was on city property for decades," he said. "It has to be done tastefully."
He said his proposal allows the city administration to decide which parks or facilities would be renamed.
Mayor Mufi Hannemann also thinks the idea is interesting and merits discussion, according to spokesman Bill Brennan.
Mayor open-minded
Hannemann said the concept has worked at arenas in other cities. But he would like to know more. "We would have some concerns about the criteria for the naming of city facilities," Brennan said.
The mayor has said that years of putting off difficult choices has left the city with major bills to pay and that more spending must be devoted to core services such as sewers and roads.
He has canceled a number of community projects to save money, saying they didn't meet his "need to have vs. nice to have" test. And he has proposed increasing monthly sewer bills and the vehicle weight tax to raise money.
City Council Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi likes Dela Cruz's idea but wants to hear more about it.
"That's an interesting concept," Kobayashi said. "We're all scrambling to find other ways to raise revenues."
Kobayashi said she could more easily picture some naming for performance venues such as the Waikiki Shell or the Blaisdell, "as long as whatever we do is appropriate."
Ala Moana lifeguard Dave Skudin, though, said the city should consider the idea only as a last resort.
"If we really need the money, maybe it's OK," he said. "Otherwise, it's like selling out the public. This is a public place where everyone is welcome. Putting a private name on it just isn't a good idea."
Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2429.
