Pacific Command may
get new headquarters
A proposed building costing
By Gregg K. Kakesako
$90 million would house almost
700 workers
Star-BulletinThe Pacific Command, whose authority extends over more than 50 percent of Earth's surface, is looking at getting a new headquarters at Camp Smith.
Lt. Col. Kevin Krejcarek, Pacific Command spokesman, said initial proposals call for a multistory building costing nearly $90 million which would be completed by 2003 and house almost 700 military and civilian workers.
"It's going to bring considerable income to the state of Hawaii while it is being constructed," Krejcarek said.
The Pacific Command is headed by Adm. Joseph Prueher, whose joint staff consists of 530 Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps personnel as well as 110 civil-service employees who work in what was built as a hospital in 1942.
Krejcarek said the headquarters building will be the first major renovation on the 220.5-acre military reservation since Camp Smith became the headquarters for the commander in chief of the Pacific Command on October 1957.
The military hopes to break ground on the new headquarters building in 2000. Initial proposals being considered by Prueher are designs around "a Hawaii, Asia and Pacific Rim theme," Krejcarek said.
"The admiral wants something distinctive that reflects the Pacific area," Krejcarek added.
Once covered by sugar cane, Camp Smith was designated as Navy Hospital Aiea Heights in 1941. Throughout World War II the 1,650-bed Aiea Hospital served thousands of wounded sailors and Marines.
It continued to expand, and in 1945, following the bloody battle for Iwo Jima, the hospital overflowed with 5,676 patients. It was the highest recorded number of people receiving care at any time in the hospital's history.
On June 1, 1949, the hospital was deactivated when Army and Navy medical facilities were consolidated at what was later to become Tripler Army Medical Center.
In 1955, when the Marines took over the Aiea facility, it was renamed in honor of the first commanding general of the Fleet Marine Forces Pacific, Gen. Holland "Howling Mad" Smith.
The Pacific Command moved its operations from Makalapa outside of Pearl Harbor to Camp Smith in 1957.
Once the Pacific Command's new building is completed, the old hospital building will revert back to its original tenants, Marine Forces Pacific and Fleet Marine Force, whose members comprise 76,000 personnel or nearly half of the total personnel in the Marine Corps.
Nearly 720 Marine Corps and civilian personnel now work for Marine Forces Pacific.
The tenure of Prueher -- who commands more than 307,000 Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps personnel -- was recently extended for another year until he retires. Prueher's force consists of about 20 percent of all active-duty U.S. military forces.
Pacific Command
Headquarters: Camp Smith
