Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Community center
could displace
Hawaiian Dredging

Its Kapahulu headquarters
is the vision team's
preferred site

By Treena Shapiro
Star-Bulletin

A building at Kapahulu Avenue and Date Street would be the ideal site for a proposed community center -- if it didn't mean evicting a company that's been there for almost 25 years.

Hawaiian Dredging Construction Co. built an office building at 614 Kapahulu Ave. in 1976, sold it in 1986 and holds a lease until August 2006. The 120 employees who own the company weren't privy to vision team meetings that discussed acquiring the property, nor were they aware the owner was considering an offer to sell it to the city. The company would consider buying the building to stay put.

"At an appropriate price, we would certainly be interested in purchasing it. I made that point clear to the current owner," said company president Bill Wilson. That's not to say Hawaiian Dredging doesn't support a community center; it just would prefer it to be in a different location, he said.

Council defers the vote

At a Council Planning Committee meeting Tuesday, Councilman John DeSoto asked for a deferral of the vote to acquire the building until a compromise could be reached with the tenants, the vision team and the administration. The deferral was approved, 3-2.

"They're already fast-tracking it without sitting down and talking to the tenants," he said. "I agree with the community center, but you cannot just go in and kick out the tenant who has been there for 25 years."

According to DeSoto, there are alternative, unoccupied sites, including the vacant lot of the former Love's Bakery.

But Councilman Duke Bainum, who represents the Kapahulu district, said the Love's Bakery property isn't for sale, and the vision team is still negotiating for the Hawaiian Dredging building, which has a $7.5 million market price.

High priority for Kapahulu

The building's location makes it the preferred site, with its proximity to bus lines, neighboring communities and government buildings that could provide municipal parking to help bolster business on Kapahulu Avenue.

One option would be to purchase the building this year and allow Hawaiian Dredging to finish its lease, while settling the parking problem in the short term. "I think the community is very willing to work to address Hawaiian Dredging's concern but is unwilling to take stonewalling or insensitivity to community needs," Bainum said.

According to Karen Ah Mai, Diamond Head Neighborhood Board chairwoman, Kapahulu needs a new community center. The existing center, at the old Waikiki Japanese school on Kapahulu Avenue, primarily services seniors and cannot expand to offer additional services to Kapahulu and neighboring communities.

The community center is among the "top priorities for the future of Kapahulu," said Ah Mai.

Committee Chairman Andy Mirikitani, who voted to defer, said he's concerned with the impact on evicting Hawaiian Dredging, which could result in layoffs.