Using a $11.2-million grant from the Economic Development Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the long-awaited Garapan Revitalization Plan is taking off, modelled after the success of Waikiki in Hawaii, one of the most popular tourist destination in the planet.<\/p>\n
This is the vision that prompted the Office of Planning and Development to work with former Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann and his partners, Rick Egged and Greg Hirata, in 2019 to point the task force in the right direction, according to OPD deputy director Chris Concepcion.<\/p>\n
He conceded that billions of dollars were spent to transform Waikiki into what it is today and that is money the CNMI doesn\u2019t have. \u201cIt\u2019s Hawaii so they have the money and we don\u2019t, but thankfully we are much of a smaller scale than Waikiki, so we think it\u2019s manageable,\u201d he said. That includes building sidewalks in Garapan and getting rid of unorganized parking curbs, among others.<\/p>\n
Part of how Waikiki did it is it created the Waikiki Improvement District Association that turned into an improvement district where businesses pay into a fund that takes care of daily trash collection, landscaping, upkeep and maintenance, and minor repair of roads and sidewalks, etc.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, the plan is to turn Garapan into a \u2018Community Improvement District,\u2019 a non-profit organization composed of commercial establishments in the area that makes it a special zone dedicated to the management, upkeep, and sustenance of Garapan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Concepcion said this undertaking needs to be created through the legislative process, with the CID governed by a board of directors composed of members from the business community and the government. \u201cWe want to target stakeholders particularly the business community who are invested in this endeavor. \u2026We want them to have majority voting so they can control the vote and their money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Having a CID, though, won\u2019t absolve the government of its responsibility as it will still be responsible for infrastructure in the area. \u201cGarapan\u2019s development is really the combined work of private and public entities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The GRTF initial studies have found that some commercial properties have encroached on public land or built right up their property line. \u201cThey essentially blocked themselves out from having their own parking. If they want their own parking, they would have to design it and integrate it within their property\u2026Since we want to add more parking spaces in Garapan, we are going to put street parking\u2026that is built in an organized and straight manner. \u2026This will invite more people\u2014residents and tourists alike\u2014to go to Garapan and help the place get back the reputation of being the center of the tourism industry,\u201d Concepcion said.<\/p>\n
As for the Paseo de Marianas itself and the idea of turning it back into a street, Concepcion said they are looking at creating a hybrid, when it can function as a street and then closed off on certain days for community events like the Christmas at the Marianas or the Thursday Street Market. \u201cI think it\u2019s very possible as we see it in other countries, other locations in the world, and it\u2019s beautiful,\u201d Concepcion added.<\/p>\n
He knows how big this undertaking will be, especially since the construction timeline is three years but his team remains focused. \u201cIt\u2019s for the betterment of the CNMI. <\/p>\n
\u201cGarapan has seen its glory days but we want to reinvigorate that,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to bring back those good days where we have thousands of tourists arriving, walking around on a daily basis, and spending money that builds our economy and tax revenue that enables the government to fulfill obligations. \u2026The revitalization plan will be in phases and go street by street, which is the standard in the construction process because we don\u2019t want to disrupt businesses,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Using a $11.2-million grant from the Economic Development Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":339589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-339534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}