Front Street Reopened in August. Its First New Businesses Arrive in September.

Front Street has been open to cars since August 1. If you've driven it, you already know what that actually looks like: repaved asphalt, a new sidewalk along the makai side, railings that didn't exist three years ago, and storefronts that still don't exist at all. The road came back weeks before a single new business did. That gap, not the reopening itself, is the story of this month in Lahaina.

What August 1 Actually Opened

The stretch that reopened runs from Pāpalaua Street to Shaw Street, along with Dickenson and Prison streets, all with no restricted hours for the first time since the 2023 fire. It's a real change. For most of the past three years, the Dickenson-to-Shaw section only allowed access from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. to accommodate work at the Lahaina Small Boat Harbor, and the blocks below Dickenson were closed outright.

Here's what the reopening didn't touch:

The state is still dredging Lahaina Harbor, and that work is what's keeping Market, Papelekane, and Mokuhinia Place off limits. A county fact sheet makes the distinction plain: the road reopening is progress, but rebuilding throughout the commercial district continues as homes, businesses, and infrastructure are restored. Nobody who's watched the block since 2023 needed that spelled out, but it's worth having the exact boundary in one place instead of piecing it together from three different closure notices.

What Actually Changes This Month

The road being drivable doesn't mean the town is back in business. As of this summer, Lahaina town had exactly five commercial building permits issued, with one project under construction, two more close behind, and more than a dozen properties still in pre-application consultation. That's the entire commercial pipeline for a district that used to anchor Hawaii's busiest tourist economy.

What's different in September is a project built specifically because that pipeline is so slow: ʻUlu o Lele, an interim marketplace going up on the former Outlets of Maui site at Front and Papalaua. It's an $8 million, two-year initiative from the nonprofit Hawaiian Council, funded in part by a $4 million grant from the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation's Maui Strong Fund, and Maui County has said it's anticipated to open this month. The layout is modest by design: 17 retail units and eight food truck spaces, 25 vendor slots total, expected to support around 90 jobs. Rents run $800 to $1,500 a month depending on unit size, and every space is solar powered, meaning the marketplace doesn't depend on the same grid that's still being rebuilt around it.

Priority goes to businesses and cultural practitioners displaced by the fire, not to whoever applies first. Courtney Lazo, a Lahaina-born owner of the clothing line Henōhea, described the location as a deliberate on-ramp rather than a destination:

"It allows our people to kind of inch their way back into our town, baby steps."

That's a useful way to think about what September is. It's not Front Street reopening. It's the first structured chance for displaced business owners to get a foothold near the block they used to occupy, on a two-year lease, before the permanent buildings behind them are even framed.

The Permit Gap Behind the Curtain

The five permitted commercial parcels sit at 612, 632, 714, 724, and 744 Front Street. Several are being rebuilt to closely match their pre-fire appearance, which is part of why approvals move slowly: a full restoration through the Lahaina Historic District review takes longer than a standard rebuild, even when the underlying structure survived. The county's Rebuild Dashboard, updated July 22, shows 315 homes under construction and 574 total building permits issued across wildfire recovery areas, against just five for Lahaina's commercial core. Residential rebuilding has real momentum behind it. Commercial rebuilding on Front Street is still counted in single digits.

That gap is exactly why ʻUlu o Lele exists as an interim step rather than a footnote to a bigger project. It gives businesses a place to operate now, while the five permitted buildings and the dozen-plus still in pre-application work their way through a process that could run years, not months.

Kimo's Is Coming Back. Not Yet, Though.

Of the businesses named as part of Front Street's return, Kimo's carries the most weight for anyone who's lived here a while. T S Restaurants has signed a letter of intent to rebuild Kimo's on Front Street, partnering with Kent Untermann and Mousa Hassan, who are restoring the Chan Wa Building as its future home. Kimo's opened in 1977 at 845 Front Street as the first T S Restaurant, founded by Rob Thibaut and Sandy Saxten, and it operated there for nearly five decades before the fire. A letter of intent and a building restoration are not a reopening date. It means the deal is real and the site is chosen, not that there's a table waiting for you this fall.

The Small Boat Harbor offers a caution about expecting too much too fast. It reopened on December 15, 2025, after being closed for 28 months, and seven tour operators have returned, including Atlantis Submarines, which towed a submarine over from Oahu in June 2026 to resume operations. Toni Marie Davis of the Activities and Attractions Association of Hawaii has described how that felt on the ground: operators who got back into the water felt like they'd won the lottery, only to find visitors hesitant to walk through a landscape that still looks scarred. Access coming back doesn't automatically bring volume with it.

Two Dates on the Calendar Right Now

The county's Lahaina Community Meeting happened this month on September 2 at the Lahaina Intermediate School cafeteria, with an agenda covering the Waineʻe Wildfire Risk Reduction Project, a planned West Maui recycling center, and an ʻUlu o Lele update from Hawaiian Council. These meetings run the first Wednesday of most months and are livestreamed on the county's Facebook page and on Akakū Channel 53, so missing one in person doesn't mean missing the update.

Ahead this month is Lights for Lahaina, a free public gathering September 11 and 12. Friday's program, Our Lahaina Story, runs from 4:30 to 9 p.m. at Maria Lanakila Catholic Church on Waineʻe Street, with live music from the Kahaialiʻi Brothers, Kevin Brown, Eric Gilliom and Friends, the Wilson Kanakaʻole Trio, Marty Dread, and Hammah House Band, alongside food trucks, cultural practitioners, and a Lahaina Time Capsule that won't be opened for ten years. Saturday's Light March runs from 6 to 9:30 p.m., beginning at Puʻunoa Beach and continuing through historic Lahaina town before ending back at Maria Lanakila.

What This Actually Means If You're Watching From Here

If you live on this side of the island, the useful takeaway isn't that Lahaina is reopening. It's that reopening is happening in layers, on different clocks, and the road was always going to move faster than the buildings. September's real news is a 25-vendor interim marketplace built for people who were displaced, sitting on a two-year lease while five permitted buildings and a dozen more applications work through a review process built for a historic district. Kimo's has a plan and a partner, not a date. The harbor has activity, not volume. And the two clearest ways to track where things actually stand are the same ones the county already publishes: the monthly community meeting and the Rebuild Dashboard.

We follow this closely because it shapes daily life across West Maui, from Kāʻanapali down through Lahaina and the rest of the coast, whether or not you have any transaction on your mind. If a question ever comes up about how this recovery intersects with a property you own or one you're watching, Maui & Co. is glad to talk it through. You can schedule a private consultation whenever that's useful.