Homeowners at Lahaina Residential marked a step toward rebuilding 60 homes on Front Street with a blessing and groundbreaking on Friday, Oct. 2. The homes at 1034 Front St. were lost in the August 2023 wildfire. The ceremony marked a start to the project, but not the start of construction: the contractor expects crews to begin Oct. 19 and estimates about 18 months for the work.
When Hawaii News Now visited, the site was still a gravel lot. Homeowner Rebecca Wimmer pointed out where her home and former parking spot had been, using familiar Front Street landmarks to locate them. Her home is one of the 60 planned for reconstruction.
Wimmer told the station she escaped the fire in her Mini Cooper and reached Cannery Mall. She thanked a stranger who let her into the line of cars on Front Street. She had been a teacher at King Kamehameha III Elementary School, which also burned. Hawaii News Now reported that she will turn 80 next year and is looking forward to the future. The contractor’s current schedule is a projection, and a specific move-in date for Wimmer has not been reported.
Lahaina Residential was established in 1979, according to the project announcement. Before the 2023 fire, its six two-story buildings provided homes for local Maui residents. The contractor describes Lahaina Residential as a 60-home community and says the rebuild will restore the buildings to their original size and layout.
The rebuild will add planned safety and water-saving features: fire-resistant siding and roofing, defensible space, fire-safe landscaping, native plants expected to use less water, low-flow plumbing fixtures and infrastructure for future electric-vehicle chargers. The project team says it worked with Maui County historic representatives on exterior materials and design elements intended to complement the historic Front Street view corridor. The Maui News reported that the site is in the Lahaina Historic District and beside the U.S. Marine Hospital, also called Seaman’s Hospital, one of the district’s principal historic sites.
Association president Thomas Ravey described a mix of working and retired Maui residents who lived in the complex. Hawaii News Now quotes Ravey describing residents who worked as teachers, firefighters, tradespeople, plumbers, electricians and surf instructors; The Maui News separately reported that residents also included health care workers and people in service jobs. The project announcement identifies Ravey as a homeowner of 30 years. The Maui News reported that residents at the ceremony recalled escaping the fast-moving fire and expressed gratitude for reaching this stage.
The county’s official recovery dashboard, updated Oct. 2, listed 614 homes completed and 415 under construction across Lahaina and Kula. Its figures are compiled from the County of Maui’s permitting system; the dashboard defines a completed home as one that has passed final inspection and is ready for habitation. It separates 301 single-family and 313 multifamily units among completed homes, so the total covers more than one kind of housing. The dashboard also listed 676 homes with issued permits and 526 homes with applications being processed, across both communities. These are not figures for the Front Street property alone.
Arita Poulson General Contracting, the project’s Maui-based general contractor, says it was founded on Maui in 1986 by carpenters Daryl Arita and Bob Poulson. It will oversee the rebuild with project partners that include design and engineering firms. In its announcement, the company said it plans to use local workers who understand the community and its recovery. The announcement names Michael Wright & Associates, Kasprzycki Designs, Martin & Martin, Island Geotechnical and Scientific Consultant Services as project partners.
The Oct. 2 event brought homeowners, project partners, Mayor Richard Bissen and council members Yuki Lei Sugimura and Tamara Paltin together for a blessing led by Kahu Alalani Hill and the ceremonial groundbreaking. Ravey said residents could see their homes beginning to come back. For Wimmer, the construction still lies ahead, but the ceremony marked a concrete milestone at the address she has waited to see rebuilt.
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