The Maui Wildfires, A Year Later: CocoNene’s Comeback
A year after the local homewares company lost its flagship Front Street store, we talk with co-owner Kent Untermann about his path forward and plans to return to Lahaina.
In the summer of 2023, local home goods company CocoNene’s Lahaina flagship store had just hit its stride. It had long been the intent of co-owner Kent Untermann to transition the company’s merchandise mix to 100% made-in-Hawai‘i products, a goal years in the making, which it finally achieved in December 2022. By the following July, its Front Street store was seeing the benefits, pulling in some of its highest numbers to date. “And then we burned to the ground, literally a week later,” Untermann says.
Losing its highest-profiting location—at the time, CocoNene also had multiple shops on O‘ahu, where Kent and his wife, co-owner Lori Untermann, are based—was financially devastating. And while all of the Lahaina staff were able to stay safe (luckily, the store had been closed the first day of the fires due to the power outages), five of those employees lost their homes. To recover, the Untermanns dived straight into an ultra-accelerated expansion plan, opening five new locations over the next 13 months and raising funds to cover its Lahaina team for the next year and beyond.
We chat with Kent about the surge-forward strategy for CocoNene, his hopes for a Lahaina rebuild and the company’s next Maui location, slated to open at Lahaina Cannery.
More coverage of Maui a year later
Above: Kent and Lori Untermann at CocoNene’s new International Market Place store.
Looking back, what did you enjoy most about being part of Front Street?
Its rich history—it was a whaling community, and there’s just so much heritage there. And the water—even though we’re on an island surrounded by water, there are so few retail venues and restaurants on the water. The view of Lāna‘i, the banyan tree, the quaint buildings. There’s a uniqueness and just something really special about Front Street.
What were some of the impacts the fires had on the company and your team?
To put it into figures, that was our No. 1 retail door—we did about 3 million a year. It was a devastating event and had the ability to put us out of business, but we were fortunate that we’re diverse and have good business interruption insurance. … We made a conscious decision that we were going to make [our employees] whole, 100% full pay with incentive. Everything they earned the trailing 12 months we were paying, and we raised more money for them because five of the nine Front Street employees lost their homes.
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I saw that CocoNene had also been raising funds for other small Lahaina businesses.
The small-business person was really lost in everything. There are really no resources for small businesses. The SBA (Small Business Administration) has yet to qualify and the qualifications are based on your ability to repay. And how can you demonstrate the ability to repay when everything that you had is gone? Most of the businesses were not insured or were underinsured. Your cash is the lifeblood of business, so if you don’t have cash, you go out of business. We had the ability to come back, so we wanted to focus on our employees and other small businesses.
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Part of your recovery plan has included an aggressive expansion?
We were going to expand anyway, but we accelerated the plans. We opened at Kings Shops on Hawai‘i Island 69 days later, then opened a new flagship at the International Market Place [on O‘ahu]. We did two stores on Maui at Ma‘alaea Harbor and Kalama Village. After that, Wailea will be our fifth store in 13 months. That probably would have happened over three years. We compressed all of that into a year to help us out.
Views of and from CocoNene’s Front Street store. Photos: Courtesy of CocoNene
You also have a store at Lahaina Cannery in the works. What does it mean to your team to return to Lahaina?
The Cannery is not Front Street, but at least emotionally, we’re responding and recovering. That’s the great thing about Hawai‘i, we have this amazing willpower. Since we live on an island, we know how to help each other. That’s what we’ve seen, and I just hope we’re able to have the same will for the business community.
What kind of support do you think Maui needs to be able to bring its economy back?
We have to understand how critical it is to bring back the vitality of Front Street sooner than later. I think you need to bring back the significant Hawaiian cultural piece. And the next most important thing is, for all the people who really want that to be a local community, where are those people going to work? I think the huge economic engine of Front Street is worth the fact that, yes, you attract a lot of tourists, but the money that they’re willing to leave for our local people to live off is something that we have to get a clear vision of.
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You’re one of the small landowners that make up the Front Street Recovery group. What is the organization focused on?
We’re trying to plead with the government to allow us to rebuild, to bring back that vitality. Taking care of the people and their homes and having a place to live is No. 1, and we completely support that. What we’re trying to do is come together because there’s a lot of challenges with rebuilding. They’re legitimate, and they need to be thought out … because the alternative is you do nothing and it’s a green belt and you lose all that economic vitality. Or it goes to some giant corporation that comes in and then all that money leaves the island. That, to me, would be the worst. … What was so unique about Front Street is we had, and we can still have, this one very special place in Hawai‘i with incredible economic activity and benefits that stay with the people.
Kent Untermann and team members in the former Front Street store. Photo: Courtesy of CocoNene
When you talk about coming back to Front Street, how far down the road would that be?
It really depends on our willpower. I believe we could fully rebuild Front Street as quickly as three to four years if we all aligned and agreed on a vision that would be aggressively realistic. Normally, it could take five to 10 years. … To me, there’s kind of two Hawai‘is. There’s a Hawai‘i where we all work together, no one’s better than us. And there’s a Hawai‘i where everybody has a different opinion and we get nothing done. We’re capable of those two extremes. I’m really hopeful that we sign up for more of the former because I think we could legitimately have a better recovery than anybody’s ever had in one of these natural disasters if we could all find a way to work together.
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Is it your goal to rebuild the store to be the same as it was?
I think we’re aligned as a group in considering how do we build as similarly, to honor historical significance, with noncombustible materials that address the legitimate climate change issues. The sea level is rising, so we have to address that. There are significant cultural issues that have been glossed over that we need to address. … There’s a balance because the economic needs are real, honoring the culture is real and honoring the climate is real. And you can do all of those.
Are you hopeful as you look forward?
I’m really optimistic. I believe in Hawai‘i, and I believe in the people.
