In March 1995, the Executive Board of the Hawaii Section approved a request by past president C. S. Papacostas to start a column relating to the History and Heritage of Civil Engineering in the Wiliki o Hawaii, the monthly engineering newsletter of the engineering societies in Hawaii. Do you know of a civil engineering accomplishment or event that your fellow ASCE members might find interesting? Please send a brief description to C.S. Papacostas (fax 956-5014, email csp@wiliki.eng.hawaii.edu).

2012 Articles

January 2012: Merchandise Mart

February 2012: Alakea Corporate Tower

January 2012: Merchandise Mart

By C. S. Papacostas for the January 2012 issue of Wiliki o Hawai`i

This is how Gwenfread E. Allen partly described, in her 1969 book, the YMCA building that was dedicated on October 11, 1911:

“It was an imposing three story and basement structure of reinforced concrete and steel, built around three sides of a central court. It extended 142 feet along Hotel Street, 212 feet along Alakea and 175 feet along Adams Lane. Except for the recently completed Young Hotel, it was probably the most modern and imposing building in Honolulu.

The stairs at the Hotel and Alakea Street corner [see drawing in last month's, December 2011, article] led to a large rotunda, Cooke Hall... and rooms for music, billiards, chess, checkers and club meetings were on the first floor. A gymnasium, providing for the usual gym activities, plus wrestling, boxing, indoor tennis, baseball and basketball was comparable to those in Y.M.C.A.s of cities with 500,000 population... For the first time, the Honolulu Y.M.C.A. had dormitory accommodations. There were 24 rooms with beds for 33 men.”

The architectural drawings by C. B. Ripley and A. Reynolds, shown below, illustrate Allen's description of it.

Allen also pointed out that “A swimming pool was added in the court in 1915.” This was in keeping with a national YMCA trend at the time. Completed in 1903, the [Alexander] Young Hotel mentioned above was a magnificent structure that occupied the entire Waikiki side of the stretch of Bishop Street between King and Hotel Streets that was opened at the same time as the hotel. Featuring a pleasant roof garden, it was described in print ads as “central, palatial, and absolutely fireproof.”

Fascinating though it may be, the story of the YMCA is beyond our immediate focus. Nevertheless, a few additional words about this important 1911 building are in order.

The Commercial Pacific Advertiser of Oct. 12, 1911 wrote that College of Hawaii Prof. John Mason Young, who was a principal of the construction firm, indicated that “it had not been necessary to bring a single skilled artisan in to work on the building; all the necessary labor had been found in Honolulu.” Moreover, the Pacific Engineering Company avoided delay penalties and, in fact, received the maximum bonus provided in the contract as an incentive for finishing early.

In search of more spacious facilities after 34 years of use, the YMCA Board put the building for sale at auction on Dec. 6, 1945. The winning offer of $353,000 came from R. A. Howe & Co. that contemporary references described as a manufacturers' representative that leased jukeboxes, among other items. For example, the Aug. 2, 1948 minutes of the Hawaii Aeronautics Commission reflect that the company's Music Service Department requested permission to install pinball machines in the terminal building at Honolulu Airport.

The impending fate of the YMCA building after its sale was revealed on Dec. 10, 1945 in a Honolulu Advertiser [HA] photo caption: "The Central YMCA building... will be renamed the Austin Davis Building and will be converted into a merchandise mart for use of manufacturing agents and commission men." In the accompanying article, A. A. Sack, the president of the 12-year old R. A. Howe Co., explained that the company was seeking tenants who would be provided with amenities including a special telephone service, public stenographic services and a notary public. He emphasized that the Merchandise Mart would not allow warehousing or storage space; only offices and display space. A photograph of Sack with someone named Stan Davis was included. This piqued my curiosity about this Davis and his relation to the person after whom the building was to be named.

Hard as I tried for several months, I was not able to find any other association between the name "Davis" and the Merchandise Mart building. Those occupants of the building over the years that I discovered (several attorneys, the Honolulu Symphony Society, Shigemoto's fountain-pen shop, and Goda Jewelers among them) had addresses given simply as being in the Merchandise Mart building.

Finally, I came upon a publication (“Alumni Horae”) of the prestigious St. Paul's School in Concord, NH, that honored its alumni who served in the Armed Forces. Among them was Austin David Scott Davis who as a student had participated in singing and was captain of the hockey team. It said: "In 1941, he and his wife and three young children were living in Honolulu where he was Honolulu Manager for the Universal Carloading and Distributing Company. When Pearl Harbor was attacked he was at once called to active duty: he had held a commission in the Field Artillery Reserve since his graduation from Princeton in 1927... He died suddenly on December 26, 1941, of coronary thrombosis, though he had been in good health and was only thirty-eight years old... After his death, the old Y.M.C.A. building was renamed after him."

More to come.

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February 2012: Alakea Corporate Tower
By C. S. Papacostas for the February 2012 issue of Wiliki o Hawai`i

On February 15, 1946, the YMCA vacated its headquarters at the mauka-ewa corner of Hotel and Alakea Streets. As I described last month (January 2012), the building subsequently housed a Merchandise Mart.

Forty years later, on March 9, 1986, the Sunday Advertiser described plans by the then owners to renovate the structure rather than “tear it down in favor of a parking lot.” Dolores Sandvold of SandSea Realty was quoted to say, “It was built originally as the Central YMCA but through the years changed hands and wasn’t attended to. We... decided to bring in a well-known design consultant for an appraisal before going ahead and tearing it down.”

The interior design consultant was Ann Leaf of San Francisco.

Only three years afterwards, the Honolulu Star Bulletin reported that one of the building’s last occupants, Hatsue Goda and her husband Tomio who ran Goda Jewelers there since 1952, had been given notice to vacate the premises in 120 days, pending the planned demolition of the structure. The owner, businessman Jimmy Pflueger, had obtained a building permit for a new commercial tower at the site [SB, 4/10/1989].

Next, we read about the sale of the 26,352 square foot parcel to Toa Kogyo (Hawaii) for a record-breaking $33 million, or $1,252 a square foot [SB, 1/4/1990]. William Grant, executive director of the Downtown Improvement Association said “the 77-year old building was vacant and scheduled for demolition before the deal closed” in August 1989, and appraiser Allan J. Conboy clarified that building plans and permits for the site probably were worth “about $500,000 of the purchase price, which still leaves a substantial cost for the land.”

The 1998 report by the State Dept. of Business Economic Development and Tourism on foreign investments included the following 1993 entry: “The 32-story tower located at 1100 Alakea Street officially opened. The owner of the project is TOA Kogyo Corp. headed by Harumuchi Ohtani. The property... features 6,000 sq. ft. floors and 372 parking stalls.”

Stringer-Tusher were listed as the Architects for the new tower that also boasted an engineering first: According to the website of the Structural Engineering firm of Martin & Chock “the 32-story office building has a 6-story deep subterranean parking garage. The foundation mat construction for this project set a record for the longest concrete pour in the State.”

According to the March 17, 2005 issue of Pacific Business News, A&B Properties, a subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin, Inc., “purchased the building at 1100 Alakea Street in March 2003, renaming it the Alakea Corporate Tower, and began marketing the office condos in October.” As for the price, the Honolulu Advertiser had reported that the building was “selling for roughly a quarter of its development cost.” Those were the years when the so called “Japanese bubble” economy burst!

Visiting the site today, I cannot help but notice a circular fountain near the corner of Alakea and Hotel streets (see Yahoo map), just below the place where the similarly-shaped grand Reception Hall of the old YMCA building used to be, but I have no knowledge of whether the connection between the two was part of the architects’ vision as well!

My research relating to the buildings of the YMCA that arose because of the Engineering Association’s original quarters in Honolulu unearthed an interesting building history for the women’s association as well.

Established in 1900, the YWCA had occupied quarters in the Elite Building next to the above-mentioned YMCA building (both gone); possibly the Progress Building at the makai-ewa corner of Fort and Beretania Streets; the Boston Building on Fort Street (now gone); the old YMCA building across the Hotel Street from Merchandise Mart (replaced); and “Laniakea,” the current YWCA headquarters across Richards Street from `Iolani Palace.

Additionally, the YWCA maintained dormitories or “homesteads” at several locations, including the notable “Fernhurst” that originally fronted King Street at its intersection with Alapa`i Street, on a parcel that is now part of the Alapa`i municipal bus yard.