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Big Isle Council
delays shopping
center OK

Mayor Kim asked for the hiatus
to work out kinks in the
controversial plan

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By Rod Thompson
Star-Bulletin

KEAAU, Hawaii -- Following a request from Mayor Harry Kim, the Hawaii County Council has voted to delay approval of a controversial East Hawaii shopping center for at least a month.

The council earlier gave preliminary zoning approval for the 32-acre, $32-million Keaau Gateway Center and industrial area planned by W. H. Shipman Ltd., facing Volcano Highway, five miles south of Hilo.

Kim said he disagreed with a plan to have the county build connector roads to Shipman's existing nearby business park and to a county park.

Shipman should build them, Kim said.

The Gateway development would be divided in half by an extension of the Keaau Bypass, to be linked to the connectors.

The bypass now ends in a T-intersection with the Volcano Highway. The bypass extension would change the three-way intersection to a four-way one.

Critics say that will create traffic congestion.

Kim said the opposite, that lack of a four-way intersection would create congestion.

Real estate appraiser Stewart Hussey, president of the Keaau Economic Development Advisory Association, wants Shipman to move the shopping center about half a mile to an existing, less-busy, four-way intersection.

Shipman president Robert Saunders said he'd like to develop that site, since it already has proper zoning and infrastructure. But Saunders said he couldn't get potential shopping-center tenants interested in the location.

"The storekeepers want to be where the customers are. The customers are in their cars," Saunders said.

Regarding congestion, a traffic analysis shows traffic flow on Volcano Highway will drop from the present "A" quality to "C" quality by 2008. But regional growth will make that happen even without the shopping center, the analysis says.

"C" level, while not ideal, is considered "satisfactory." The Gateway center will cause waits at the traffic light during rush hours to increase from about 30 seconds to 45 seconds, the analysis says.