Waikiki Beach projects expected to top $50M

Millions in state funding for Waikiki Beach improvements lapsed under the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, and while the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism is moving four projects forward again in a final environmental impact statement, the estimated cost has ballooned to more than $50 million.

Dolan Eversole, a coastal processes specialist at University of Hawaii’s Sea Grant College and Waikiki Beach management coordinator for the Waikiki Beach Special Improvement District Association, which pays the university for his services, said in a recent update to the Waikiki Neighborhood Board that $12 million was appropriated by the state Legislature in 2020 for a set of beach projects outlined in a 2021 draft EIS but that $8 million of the funding given to DLNR lapsed in June.

Eversole said ownership of the final EIS and associated projects now falls to DBEDT’s Office of Planning and Sustainable Development, as “DLNR is more of an environmental regulatory body and the chair was currently very uncomfortable with this idea of regulating their own project.”

Eversole said new funding must be requested from the Legislature to complete the four projects, which aim to increase resilience to coastal hazards and sea level rise in the Fort DeRussy, Halekulani, Royal Hawaiian and Kuhio beach sectors of Waikiki.

Final costs have not been determined, but Eversole said the top project in the final EIS, Halekulani beach stabilization, is “the gorilla in the room” and is now estimated to cost about $50 million.

Eversole said the project would restore the Halekulani beach cell by replacing 60,000 cubic yards of sand and holding it in place with three T-head groins and L-spurs on the Royal Hawaiian groin and one on the Fort DeRussy groin.

“We’re looking carefully at what is it going to take to get through the final permits and then start to think about the funding for this,” he said, adding that the sand replenishment portion is three times the size of the last Waikiki Beach renourishment in 2022.

Eversole said the initial engineering design has been completed, but DBEDT must issue a new contract for final designs, plans and permits.

The three other projects in the final EIS are relatively minor in comparison, he said. For instance, a project in the Fort DeRussy area would move sand back to where it was on the Diamond Head end. According to Eversole, there is currently an excess amount of sand at the pier by the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort, some of which originated at the Fort DeRussy groin side where the sidewalk gets over-topped regularly.

Eversole said another project is the continuation of regular beach maintenance at the Royal Hawaiian beach, which entails taking sand from offshore and pumping it back to the shore every five to 10 years.

“Since that last project in 2022, it seems to be quite stable — more stable than even expected — but it’s not going to last forever,” he said, speculating that perhaps the Royal Hawaiian groin improvements have made the whole beach cell more stable than in the past.

He added that the Kuhio Beach area’s Diamond Head basin is proposed to remain in its current configuration, but said the final EIS includes a lower-priority project to make a segmented breakwater on the Ewa portion by the hula mound “where it’s way too low and it seems to be ineffective at keeping the beach there.”

Eversole said the four projects “are a form of climate adaptation for a critically important beach area that is under a lot of erosion pressure that is threatening public infrastructure and private property. The final EIS identifies the potential environmental impacts of these projects, which are expensive — far more than the earlier cost estimates before the money lapsed.”

Benefits questioned

Supporters like Eversole say the costs are worth it from an economic standpoint, and the impacts are negligible and much better than the alternative of not doing anything to protect Waikiki. He said more than 70 letters of support for the projects were submitted for a July 2023 update to the Board of Land and Natural Resources.

Mary Alice Evans, director of DBEDT’s Office of Planning and Sustainable Development, which before taking on the Waikiki Beach final EIS was already working on the Waikiki Resilience and Sea Level Rise Adaptation Project, told the Waikiki Neighborhood Board, “We have to be ready to institute adaptive interventions as needed, because we want to protect Waikiki and its beach, which is a very important part of our economy, and its residents, which are an important part of our community, all 22,000 of you.”

But critics like Save Our Surf’s Keone Downing have raised concerns about how the proposed projects will affect the nearshore reef habitat for the endangered Hawaiian green sea turtle, which they say would be covered by the rock-rubble groins and sand. They worry the sand will cover the coral. They also fear the groins could alter surf breaks and endanger swimmers.

Downing said he is not convinced the improvements are needed or worth the impacts, and said they could trigger unintended consequences. For example, he opined that the new Royal Hawaiian groin “is a monolith,” which he said has robbed the beach in front of the Outrigger Reef Waikiki Beach Hotel and created a sandbar near the groin that tour catamarans are having trouble navigating.

Downing supports restoring the beach fronting the Outrigger Reef, especially if the sand is taken from the Halekulani channel or from the sandbar formed since the Royal Hawaiian groin improvements. But he said he thinks the massive Halekulani beach stabilization is unnecessary, especially since the Halekulani Hotel has never had much of a beach.

“What will we gain for the amount of money that we spend?” Downing said. “No one is talking about building structures like these on the North Shore to save people’s houses.”

Downing objects to using public funding for the Halekulani beach stabilization project, given that the beaches it would restore “provide more benefit to the hotels than the public, and that with sea-level rise there’s no guarantee that the beach would stay there anyway. At that point, I think they’ll be a lot more things to worry about than the beaches, like our sewer system.”

Eversole said restoring lateral access for the public to traverse more of the Waikiki beaches is a major public benefit. He added that the work also provides a pathway to preserving Waikiki’s beaches for 50 years. While agreeing with Downing that climate change adaptations also are needed, he said it should not be “an either-or decision.”

Rick Egged, president of the Waikiki Improvement Association, said the Waikiki Beach Special Improvement District Association raises about $1 million a year from private commercial operators and currently has about $4 million available to augment beach projects.

But Downing said greater private contribution is needed. Although Thursday’s deadline to provide comments for the final EIS has passed, he encouraged the public to weigh in on the project during the permitting process.

Finding funding

The final EIS, which was published in October, now heads to Gov. Josh Green for signature and authorization, which Eversole said “does not mean the projects that are in the EIS are authorized; it’s just the environmental document that will be used to guide the permitting going forward. But it’s an important hurdle and it’s something that we’ve been working toward with the state for about six years now. “

Egged said DBEDT is expected to request $2 million from the governor’s budget to complete the design work for the projects, which would provide a better estimate of the costs.

“We see developing the final plans as a major financial commitment to Waikiki’s future,” he said. “The projects are necessary to be able to maintain Waikiki as a major visitor destination in the future. Currently our shoreline is threatened. We have potential failings all along the coast.”

State Sen. Sharon Moriwaki (D, Waikiki-Ala Moana-Kakaako-­McCully) said she supports pursuing new solutions for Waikiki and is hopeful that as the EIS moves forward, it will continue to be updated with new technologies.

“Waikiki Beach is so precious to us that really we have to do a good job in a sustainable way of keeping that whole shoreline protected,” Moriwaki said. “We are looking not so much at hardened structures as nature-inspired solutions.”

Although the projects in the EIS are likely to cost significantly more than the Legislature previously set aside, she believes that if they are determined to be necessary, the Legislature could consider funding them through a bond.

“What we need is for them to show us some results and show why it’s justified,” she said.

Eversole said that if the projects move forward, construction would not start until 2026 at the earliest, and only if everything went perfectly.

Meanwhile, DLNR is expected to use the remainder of the original funding on smaller-scale beach restoration work, which is outside the scope of the EIS.

“We still have money left in the pot and Sen. Moriwaki has ordered me not to let it lapse,” said Michael Cain, administrator of DLNR’s Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands.

He said one project will take the sand from inside the swimming basins between Kuhio Beach and the Kapahulu groin and place it back on shore, restoring the swimming channel and widening the beach.

Cain added that DLNR also intends to replace a sandbag stub groin on Kuhio Beach with a small rock groin and repair broken portions of the toe of the swimming basin.

Moriwaki said another $650,000 was put into DLNR’s budget in 2023 specifically for the Halekulani stretch, also known as Kawehewehe, where there is currently not any beach. She said this funding will support a pilot program to bring sand into the area as well as walkway repairs.