Coco Palms site should be housing or a park
Last week’s Your View question had 272 votes for Coco Palms having some sort of community use and 464 votes for it being a resort. Was there a call-out to the tourism industry to get out the vote for Coco Palms being a resort? Another resort, no. More affordable housing, a park, yes. In my opinion, when tourism rebounds it should be no more than 50% of what it was before the virus shutdown. Kaua‘i has an opportunity to re-define its economy. It won’t be easy. More of our own food supply, some modest manufacturing, thinking differently than what’s been done before. Just not another resort and relying on tourism to be the kingpin.
Mark Perry, Lihu‘e
Let’s talk about Coco Palms
With the news we’ve been having recently, the shootings, the protests, the coronavirus, and whatever news we’ve seen for the past weeks, why don’t we divert our attentions and focus on something that has been in the news for 28 years? Let’s talk about Coco Palms.
It’s been sitting there in disrepair since 1992, and the so-many would-be owners were all there, once upon a time, and tried to make a go of it. There were talks about breaking it down, demolishing it, making it into a park, a playground, a museum, and a place we can enjoy and have some fun. But on the other hand we have those who believed, thought and bull-headed believed and thought it would be great just to rebuild it, not taking into consideration traffic, traffic lights, the overhead bridge for people to get from the hotel to the beach, and the congestion we would probably be faced with.
The last we’ve heard about the Coco Palms hotel was Chad Waters and Tyler Greene were going to develop it, but somehow they defaulted, and lost it to a new company who I believe is or was Stillwater. To my understanding they had just one more of the required applications that needed to be approved by July or Aug. 31, 2019, before they could build. So what now? We haven’t heard anything since and, honestly, nothing about Stillwater and the Coco Palms. And what about Chad Waters and Tyler Greene? Are they still involved?
Can anyone make sense of what’s going on? That place is really an eyesore, and something drastic must be done now. And why the hold-ups? Politics again?
If it were me, I’d have it torn down. But who am I? Well, build it, then.
Ray Domingo, Lihu‘e
