Aloha, construction zone

Besides new and renovated hotels and restaurants, the projects include new public spaces designed to bring light, trees and Hawaiian entertainment into what had become a warren of narrow streets and concrete blocks.

The price tag? More than half a billion dollars -- and growing.

It's possibly the most sweeping development ever done at once in the former playground of Hawaiian royalty, said Jay Talwar, senior vice president of marketing for the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau. "I don't know that it's ever happened en masse as it's happening now," he said.

Although some changes, including re-branding the landmark Sheraton Moana Surfrider as a Westin hotel, are months away, a few big projects have been completed this month.

Leading the charge is Outrigger Enterprises Group. The hotelier has spent years razing, renovating and rebuilding properties on 7.9 acres in a once-grubby area of Waikiki. The result is the Waikiki Beach Walk, a $535-million hotel, condominium and retail project opening in phases in the next two to three years.

In some ways, the Beach Walk simply means more of the same in Waikiki. Retail tenants include a new location of the neighborhood's ubiquitous ABC Stores, a Crazy Shirts T-shirt store and Ruth's Chris Steak House.

But it also brings real improvements, including an open-air arcade and grassy outdoor stage on Lewers Street, which previously was a crevasse straddled by ratty concrete towers.

"You'd walk down Lewers, and basically you had to look straight up to see the sky," said Nancy Daniels, an Outrigger spokeswoman. "To open this space up is just tremendous."

The first shops opened this month. Local celebrity chef Roy Yamaguchi plans to open a new location of his fusion cuisine restaurant, Roy's, here in February.

The Beach Walk project also brings new hotels. Outrigger is taking reservations at its new Embassy Suites Hotel-Waikiki Beach Walk, a two-tower, 421-suite property one block from the ocean between Lewers and Beachwalk streets, which opened Dec. 18. The hotel has introductory rates starting at $269.