Coconut palms fell yesterday on Waikiki's Kalakaua Avenue as part of the Kamehameha Schools' $84 million face-lift of the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, prompting as least one business neighbor to complain that "it's horrible" to remove so many mature trees.

The Festival Companies is developing the project for Kamehameha Schools, the first renovation since the mall was completed in 1980.

Project manager Dan Marzewski said many of the trees will be replaced but others will be brought back for extensive landscaping as part of the overall project. He said that when the project is completed late next year, "there will be more trees than there are now."

While some 70-foot coconut palms were cut down, others have been gently uprooted to be replanted later.

He said a 175-year-old banyan and a 100-year-old akee are among trees being saved in place.

Douglas Lupton, who works in a real estate brokerage firm in Waikiki, said he was shocked to see so many tall trees cut down by chain saws yesterday.

He called it a "desecration." And he has a hard time understanding why mature trees are being replaced with much smaller ones.

"I've been here 45 years," he said. "They leveled it."

But Marzewski said trees being cut down during the three-phase landscape removal have termites or other problems. "They're not healthy trees," he said. "When they reach a certain height, they actually become dangerous."

Marzewski said any unclaimed trees that could be saved were offered to the city, the University of Hawai'i and other places.

The developers checked with the Outdoor Circle, according to Bob Loy, director of environmental programs. Loy said the organization expressed concern that shower trees and other shade trees were being replaced with palms that wouldn't provide as much shade.

"We would prefer if some of the shadier trees be kept," Loy said, "but we gave it our approval."

In response, Marzewski said crews are including more shade trees, but he did not have the specific number available for the entire project. He said they are still finalizing plans with the city on the number of specific trees in each phase of the project.

Marzewski said trees were removed on Lewers up to Kalakaua last month. Yesterday, crews moved to the second phase, removing trees along Kalakaua between Lewers and Seaside. The next phase is Seaside down to the center's end, he said.

Landscaping will begin to return in the spring of 2006, Marzewski said.

City Planning and Permitting Director Henry Eng said the tree removal is part of an overall master plan for revitalization.

He said there is "a comprehensive plan for changing the landscaping," which includes relocation, removal and replacement of others trees. "Kamehameha Schools has worked with us and kept us up to date as to their activities," he said.

Marzewski said plans include replacing 15 to 30 coconut palms, adding plumeria and caliper canopy trees as well as flowering plants like ginger, spider lilies, tiare and the native hibiscus naio. Other plants would include taro, a tamarind tree, palapalai fern, 'akia and pohinahina.

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.