By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
The state will decide late next month which of three
companies will win the right to redevelop the
old Kakaako pumping station.

---

Eateries, museum,
mystery project proposed
for pump station

The state will hear pitches
from three developers next month

By Jerry Tune
Star-Bulletin

One developer envisions a restaurant at the former Ala Moana sewage pumping station. Another hopes to build a fishing museum at the 97-year-old historic site. A third builder also has plans for the Kakaako property but won't say what they are.

The three developers have been invited to make formal presentations to the Hawaii Community Development Authority, the state agency that oversees Kakaako development, on July 9 at 2 p.m. The authority will make a selection by July 25.

The developers are:

Weiser Companies Inc., which wants to build a restaurant complex with A Pacific Cafe as the prospective tenant. The project would include a bakery, delicatessen, bar/pub, possibly a microbrewery and wine cellar, and a farmer's market.

The proposal calls for adding new buildings to blend in with the pumping station, for a total of 8,000 square feet.

Richard Weiser heads the company, based in Charleston, S.C, which has done other Hawaii projects. Charles Pankow Builders Ltd. of Honolulu would be the design-builder.

Antsberg & Antsberg Inc., which would like to develop a museum dedicated to fishing in Hawaii. It would use the existing buildings and include fishing vessels representing different time periods. The museum would be used for meetings, movies on fishing and talks from scientists on the fishing industry.

Antsberg & Antsberg was a company founded in 1980 for commercial fishing. Fritz Antsberg, the owner, worked many years as a commercial fisherman before buying Oceantronics Inc., a company that deals in marine electronics.

Construction Management & Development Inc. submitted the third proposal to the authority. But the company declined to identify the type of project it hopes to build.

The sewage pumping station is on an acre at Keawe Street and Ala Moana in Kakaako.

The pumping station is a blue-stone structure, with arched windows, a green-tile roof and an 80-foot-high tower. It was built in 1900 as the city's first waste disposal facility.

Steam-powered pumps carried sewage 1,200 feet out to sea. It was replaced in 1955 by a new sewage facility nearby.

But the old pumping station remained for standby use for several years. It was designated an historic site in 1978.