Waikiki improvement CEO outlines BID model as neighborhood weighs similar idea

Trevor Abrazua, newly installed CEO of the Waikiki Improvement Association, gave a long overview of the business improvement district (BID)/community benefit district model used in Waikiki and downtown Honolulu and described programs and results the association attributes to that model.

Abrazua said the Waikiki BID is funded primarily through commercial property assessments and private donations and that annual revenue typically runs between about $4.5 million and $5 million, with roughly 85% of those dollars spent on street-level services. "Our biggest program... is called our Aloha Ambassador program," he said, and described a clean team, hospitality staff, security guards with body cameras and a street-medicine program that contractors provide for outreach and medical care on the sidewalks.

He told the board the BID mixes "carrot and stick" strategies—outreach, street medicine and housing navigation with geographic restrictions and enhanced penalties for habitual offenders—to reduce theft and violent offenses in core Waikiki, and credited the approach with steep declines in some localized counts.

Board members and residents repeatedly focused on funding and accountability: whether residents would be included in assessments, how tiers are set, what tenants versus property owners pay, and what governance and reporting would look like. Abrazua described a 25-member board, public meetings and the ability for stakeholders to remove leadership and adjust rates by a council process. He also encouraged the neighborhood to pursue negotiation of developer community benefits and to consider pilot funding or seed revenue if a BID is pursued.

Next steps: board members asked staff to explore the BID concept further, invite additional experts, and investigate opportunities to redirect community-benefit funds from future development waivers to a local BID-like entity.