June 15, 2011
Listening To The Land
Mitch D’Olier of Kaneohe Ranch is sprucing up Kailua town, not always to the liking of some residents, but he says he follows one guiding principle: Listen to the land
By Chad Pata
Mitch D’Olier has a vision for Kailua town, and is guided by advice his old friend Kenny Brown once gave him.
Through his first nine years as president of Kaneohe Ranch, Mitch D’Olier had been beset by criticisms that he and his company were trying to change the very nature of Kailua. (ask yourself, has Kailua changed in the last nine years?) Whether it was the three-story parking structure behind Longs or the new Target on Hahani Street, it seemed clear to a small, vocal contingent that D’Olier is out to destroy everything that makes Kailua Kailua.
But from D’Olier’s perspective, he came to the helm at a time when change was going to happen regardless, (but what type of change is the issue at hand? Small, local businesses and parks, or mainland big-box stores?) and he wanted to do what was best to revitalize downtown Kailua while keeping its small town charm.
“When I joined Kaneohe Ranch, 16 of the 45 acres in Kailua owned by Kaneohe Ranch were coming off of 55-year leases that were ending,” says D’Olier, who ran Victoria Ward prior to coming over the Pali.
“When a lease ends, you get back a pretty old, tired 50-year-old building that, no matter what you have done to try to have the tenant maintain it, won’t have been maintained like you would have maintained it. That was going to cause change, and that is the context for this.” (how do you know the new tenants will maintain the property any better? --Hence the 6 month old hanging blue tarp in Longs. And, why wasn't this enforced with the previous tenants?)
The properties it was taking over had all been built before regulations were in place concerning zoning and parking, leaving a heavily used shopping area with a dearth of parking and a brand new drug store and Whole Foods slated to move in, adding to the problem.
The fix was to be a simple one: a three-story structure built in-block so it wouldn’t even be visible once the surrounding buildings were completed, and with the construction of Longs nearing completion, a decision had to be made.
“We didn’t have a lot of time. Longs said, ‘Build it now or don’t build it, we can’t operate a store while you’re building a structure,’” recalls D’Olier. “So we didn’t have the luxury of taking the time in the community to prepare the community. And there was a lot of hue and cry in the community, and that made me realize that we have a lot of communication to do.”
So Kaneohe Ranch set up an 18-month community planning process, holding six four-hour meetings in the Kailua Intermediate School cafeteria to get input from residents on how they wanted the change to be realized. (this was in 2005 -- needs/ideas change since then)
“We appreciate the continued input we have gotten from everybody, and we try to listen and we are always open to ideas and comments,” says D’Olier, who has lived in Hawaii for the past 40 years (but not in Kailua). “Understand that the context for a lot of this is the termination of a lot of leases, and that is going to drive a lot of change just by reason of itself and that, as a community, let’s just try to do our best going forward.”
One of the big ones was preservation of Hamakua Hillside, the green ridge that serves as a backdrop for Kailua town. While a retirement community was once planned for those hills, Kaneohe Ranch is now working to sell the land back to the state so it can be used for public recreational use.
Two walkways are planned for the hills, one by the stream and one going up the ridge, providing yet another way for Kailua residents to stay in shape while enjoying their environment (along with renting bicycles and those ugly Rent-a-bike stands).
“A friend of mine named Kenny Brown told me you have to let the land tell you what it wants to be,” says D’Olier, who received his law degree from the University of Iowa. “You really have to get in touch with the land, and he was exactly right about that.” (so how has he "listened to the land")
As part of D’Olier’s expressed desire to invigorate Kailua came the idea of the Kailua Night Market. He approached the Department of Agriculture and the crew from Kapiolani Community College Farmers Market, and they came up with the Thursday night concept, housed in the new parking structure to prevent rainouts and add to the utility of the building.
“I figured we could use the amenity, bring together farmers and local residents and get people to stay downtown at night,” says D’Olier, who claims there were 3,000 people on the first night and that they are still drawing more than 1,500 every week.
“It brought the community together. A lot of social capital develops from people being together in places, and there are all kinds of people I see every Thursday in the farmers market who I might not otherwsieever see.”
Kaneohe Ranch has been part of this community dating back to 1893, when it actually was a ranch, and has evolved as the Windward side has, changing from farming to land holding as the Wilson Tunnel and Pali Highway brought a new population to Kailua. Through the changes, it has maintained certain philosophies that are readily evident when you walk around the new Kailua Town Center.
First is a commitment to art. Throughout the center you will find murals, fountains and mosaics that are required by the very tenets of the company. As a nod to Harold Castle’s affinity for dogs, there is even a dog water fountain street-side of the Whole Foods building.
One also will notice the oversized, shaded sidewalks, meant to entice people to get out of their cars. For D’Olier, a big part of keeping the small town feel is having pedestrians rather than drivers. (have you ever tried to cross the street in Kailua lately?)
“Now my job is how to bring these businesses in and keep the character of a small place, and that is the fun of my job - things like public art, dog fountains and the Hamakua Nature Walk,” he says. (how is he "keeping the character" if he is tearing down all the old buildings?)
But it is not all fun. The other controversy D’Olier has been battling has been the Target store. Opponents have even gone so far as to create a website to post concerns over jobs being taken, small businesses being run out of town and traffic bringing the city to a screeching halt.
The uproar leaves D’Olier scratching his head a bit. For starters, Kaneohe Ranch didn’t recruit Target. Target actually came and purchased the lease from Don Quijote all on its own. Secondly, it is simply replacing one big super store with a newer, nicer super store.
“With Target, it seemed to be Big Box hatred, though the box isn’t much bigger than Holiday Mart was before,” says D’Olier. “I was surprised by the vehemence of the Target thing. Some of it was corporate hate, and some of it was hatred of national brand names.
“Even though we already had a Macy’s and a Longs and a Starbucks, they didn’t want any national names and just as soon preferred I took all the national names out and started all over again. So our question was: What works? Should we be in retail at all or should it be all offices?”
Now that the traffic fears have been allayed, construction has begun with the store due to open in July of next year. (if they get their permit)
As a show of its commitment to the community, Target Foundation rebuilt the library at Blanche Pope Elementary School from the ground up. New white smart boards were installed, new computers sit atop the desks and 2,000 new volumes of books were brought in. (Target does this everywhere in the US. They buy peoples happiness)
“They are trying to create a love of reading with all children,” says D’Olier, who moved here from the south side of Chicago. “Literacy is something that Target is all about nationally. They told me they were community guys, but I never thought anything like that would come about that fast.” (because so many of us are so unhappy)
D’Olier also likes to point out that Target was going to be built somewhere on the Windward side and people are going to shop there regardless. Keeping it in Kailua will bring more dollars to the town and to the peripheral shops around it. (how is a mainland store keeping "more dollars" in the town? The money spent goes to the coporate headquarters in Minneapolis)
Despite all the criticisms he has had to endure in the job, D’Olier still looks at it as the best thing that could have happened for him.
“I was asked to take the job as president of Kaneohe Ranch at the same time as I was asked to take the job as president of the Harold Castle Foundation,” says D’Olier.
“The combination of the two - the chance to really try to give back to the community and make the philanthropy more effective to the benefit of all of Hawaii’s people and to build assets for this place - that was an opportunity unlike any I had ever seen, and it has turned out to be as rewarding as I thought it would be.”
D’Olier met his wife Bambi while in school at the University of Iowa. After graduating they came to visit Oahu and he immediately fell in love with the Islands. Bambi agreed to move out here for one year - 40 years ago. A lawyer by trade, he worked in processing transactions between companies for 19 years, making him the natural choice when Hawaiian Airlines needed a new man to help them out of the financial wilderness.
This led him to Victoria Ward where he spent nine years before joining Kaneohe Ranch in 2002.
While the company does keep him busy, recreational diving is the family hobby, though the new grandkids have made Disneyland much more of a destination than the Great Barrier Reef for the foreseeable future.
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