WAILUKU, Maui — When it comes to Wailuku's business district, Yogi Berra's observation comes to mind: Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded.

Once the hub of Central Maui's retail and service trade, the district has been bleeding tenants to Kahului for generations, but it's still hard to find a parking place, The Maui News reported.

Depending on who you talk to, the latest scheme to arrest the decline of Wailuku is too much, too little or out of sequence. The $6.4 million Market Street improvement project began in January. Its upgrades include new sidewalks, improved drainage, new roadway signs and pavement markings, landscaping, lighting and street-scapes. The project is 80 percent funded by a federal highways grant.

The sticking point is the loss of parking. Two dozen parking spaces will be lost on Market Street between Wells and Kahawai streets, said county spokeswoman Mahina Martin.

"The primary reason for the reduction in stalls is to provide space for landscape islands and disabled parking stalls," she said.

Teri Edmonds, who owns businesses on both sides of North Market Street — the eye of the parking storm — said, "I'm excited that the beautification is going forward; it's going to look great."

Edmonds picks her words carefully and emphasizes that she is speaking as owner of If the Shoe Fits and Tester's Shoe Repair, and not for the Wailuku Community Association. She finished two years as president of that organization earlier this month.

She said she understands the worries of merchants down the block, like Joe Myhand, owner of Bird of Paradise antiques. Myhand is circulating a petition asking the county not to go forward with one part of the beautification program — the closure of an unpaved parking lot next to Iao Theater for conversion into a minipark.

Martin said the county does not intend to proceed with the planned minipark, as its plans are seven years old and would need to be reworked with input from merchants. She also said county officials are considering allowing temporary parking to continue between the police substation and Iao Theater.

Myhand also would like to save a few parking spaces along North Market that are going to be lost to tree plantings.

He points to a concrete planter with a small palm in front of his store, relic of an earlier attempt to beautify North Market. "Our ashtrays," he calls them.

The county doesn't maintain its street landscaping, he said, and he'd rather have parking spaces.

"I've got a guy who brings consignments to me. He had to circle four times to find a place to park. How many window-shoppers are going to circle the block four times?"

Everybody — well, almost everybody — would be fine if the county had redeveloped its parking lot between North Market and North Church streets first, as called for in the Maui Redevelopment Agency plan for revitalizing the county seat's traditional business core.

That has been a dream since about 1990, but it would cost tens of millions of dollars. Attempts to find private developers to pick up the tab in exchange for concessions (such as rental space on the ground floor of a parking structure) have failed.

The Market Street improvement project costs much less, and the county had the funds. Thus, a switch in priorities.

The county would have had to find at least some of the money, because it is required to reconfigure its sidewalks to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Myhand is resigned to losing those four stalls, but not to losing some others near his shop just for beautification.

He has numerous business allies, including Jenny Silva, who operates Stephanie's Beauty Salon a few doors down. Her family started the salon 59 years ago.

"I would like not to have the planters," said Silva. "It would be better if they gave us back a couple of stalls."

Cindy Mauricio, who was having her hair done, agreed. A customer of Silva's for more than 10 years, Mauricio said, "I came early just to get a parking space . . . Do we need to tell you it gets busy?"

Across the street, Mike Emura avoided commenting about the current debate. His family has operated Emura's jewelry store on Market Street for 90 years. He did recall how his father, George, had attended innumerable meetings of one group or another devoted to solving the problem of fitting modern automobiles into a business center built for horses and pedestrians.

George Emura eventually stopped attending those meetings.

The meetings, however, still continue.

Jocelyn Perreira, executive director of the Wailuku Main Street Association, has been involved in Wailuku issues for 20 years. She said that when the Main Street organization was brought in, it had two priorities: first, to rescue the dilapidated Iao Theater; second, to address the parking conundrum.

The county bought the theater, which makes parking the top priority now.

Working alongside the Maui Redevelopment Agency, the business community — or at least those members who stuck out the meetings — came up with the parking/beautification plan. Perreira said some newcomers may not realize that the plan was publicly reviewed before being adopted by the County Council in 1999.

Myhand and Richard Dan, owner of Cash for Gold, say there was an agreement — except they thought part of the agreement was that the parking structure would be done first.

Silva, too.

"I definitely appreciate the development," she said. She just wishes the county could do more to "make the impact minimal."

"We are losing 48 parking stalls out of a total of 176," said Myhand. The postponement of the minipark may cut that loss to about 24, but during construction the total goes back up again, because some stalls in the municipal lot are occupied by construction equipment and supplies.

Jose and Claire Fujii Krall, who operate Maui Bake Shop & Deli at Church and Vineyard, say dust is a problem for their business, as is lack of enforcement of time restrictions.

Claire Krall said that since gasoline prices have soared, people are parking in the Wailuku municipal lot and car pooling to jobs in West Maui, soaking up even more spaces that cut off her customers.

Although parking enforcement within the big lot may be lacking, enforcement of street parking is described as rigid to ruthless.

A $35 ticket is a deterrent to repeat business, said Jose Krall.

That's one reason Dan has proposed a valet parking system, but to do that he would need reserved spaces somewhere — preferably in the new county lot behind Iao Theater and his business.

It seems that every action to create parking has an opposite reaction.

Another proposal to relieve parking pressure in the business district would make county (and possibly state) workers park somewhere else (possibly the War Memorial Complex) and get to their town jobs via a shuttle.

The Kralls worry that might cost them business, since county workers parking in the municipal lot stop by their shop.

Although there are some empty storefronts in the area, the Main-Market axis continues to attracts tenants.

Bob Horcajo, who operates Kamaaina Properties at the main intersection, said his building recently lost a tenant (a mortgage company). He said he has two qualified applicants for the spot.

"We are going to choose one," he said, but the other has indicated a desire still to move to Wailuku.

Horcajo, who has been at his location only about a year (it has been a restaurant and several other things in the past), said businesses need to learn to live with the parking situation. They need to find parking for their employees elsewhere, for example.

Dan agrees with that. He rents spaces about three blocks away, at the site that used to be Maui's fish auction.

The Wailuku business district is a surviving example of what 21st-century planners tout as "village mixed use," with substantial numbers of dwellings, both houses and apartments, remaining despite conversion of many old houses to offices.

It is a place where people can and do walk to work.

But it is also a main thoroughfare for heavy truck traffic with numerous bottlenecks left over from the days when Wailuku was the county seat for a less-complex county with horse-drawn carriages and a steam locomotive as primary modes of transportation.

For more Maui news, visit www.mauinews.com.