‘Time to move’ on
cruise-terminal plan

But state officials say
it may be two years before Honolulu
can match other major ports

By Jerry Tune
Star-Bulletin

The state is moving ahead with plans to turn the Foreign Trade Zone No. 9 warehouses at Honolulu Harbor's Pier 2 into a cruise ship terminal.

"It's been on the long-term waterfront master plan for sometime, and now it's time to move on it," said Rick Egged, who as director of the Office of State Planning is in charge of the efforts.

Key Hawaii maritime industry officials say a modern terminal is vital to help deal with the rapidly growing cruise business.

Egged said the state agrees but adds that it may take two years for a new cruise terminal to open. He said the state has started looking for a new home for the Foreign Trade Zone warehouses.

Honolulu does not have a modern cruise ship terminal with passenger walkways and baggage handling facilities but ships tie-up at Pier 2 and at Piers 9-10-11 at Aloha Tower, where passengers can disembark.

Bill Anonsen, director of marine operations at American Hawaii Cruises, said he would like to see Pier 2 developed with modern, flexible facilities to take care of two ships, each more than 800 feet long and each able to carry 2,000 passengers.

"There are new passenger loading bridges like the jetways at airports that we can use," Anonsen said. He noted that a new cruise terminal was recently built in Florida for about $10 million.

Bill Thayer, president of Waldron Steamship Co., said he believes a renovation of existing Pier 2 warehouses would be much cheaper and just involve cleaning up the space, repainting, and adding some ramps.

The Pier 2 warehouses were built in the 1950s and have more than 168,800 square feet. Thayer said it is underutilized by the Foreign Trade Zone, and the contents could be moved to another building at Fort Armstrong.

But Gordon Trimble, trade zone administrator, said the warehouse space is "reasonably full" with products like textiles, beer, wine, motorcycles, powdered milk, lumber, yeast and newsprint.

Although state officials considered several options at Pier 2, including renovating the existing warehouses, they have decided it would be better to start from scratch.

One reason is that a smaller facility could be created and this would allow for a larger staging area for buses and taxis, they said.

The new terminal also could tie in with the planned Ward Avenue extension, which will connect Ward Avenue to Punchbowl Street via a road that runs makai of, and parallel to, Ala Moana.

The Ward Avenue extension is designed to pass near the warehouses as it connects to Punchbowl Street but the actual road alignment still is under discussion, said Jan Yokota, executive director of the Hawaii Community Development Authority, the state agency in charge of the extension.

The roadway design must be done for compatibility of trucks coming into Pier 1 and 2 areas, and tour buses and taxis for the cruise terminal, Yokota said.

The road work won't be completed until mid-2000 at the earliest, she added.

State officials also acknowledge that a new cruise-ship terminal is a couple of years from reality.

Thayer said that's not soon enough. "We could use the cruise-ship terminal right now."

Good terminal facilities help convince cruise lines to continue coming to Hawaii, he said.

Passenger ship calls this year to Hawaii will grow to 238, a 145 percent increase from the 97 calls last year, he said.

Also, two new large ships for American Hawaiian Cruises are expected within the next four or five years.

The cruise line now uses the S.S. Independence to take up to 1,021 passengers on interisland trips and a second ship of this size will be added in July 1999 on an interim basis until the two larger ships are delivered.

Anonsen said American Hawaii Cruises expects to "double our calls and triple our passenger load" by next summer.

Public hearings on the state's plans for Pier 2 will be held this summer.