Gathering Places
Gathering Places
KAUNAKAKAI, MOLOKAI >> This famous landmark, which opened in 1946, has served residents and visitors as an affordable kamaaina hotel. As the island's gathering place, Pau Hana has touched the lives of almost everyone on Molokai. Countdown time for
venerable Pau Hana InnMolokai Ranch Ltd., closed Pau Hana three days before Christmas in 1998 because the hotel operator leasing the property failed to renew its insurance policy. Since then, the Pau Hana Ohana Community Foundation has sought to reopen Pau Hana as the state's first hotel to be operated as a community-based economic project but has been hampered by the high sale price.
The community plan is simple. Pau Hana would be operated by a qualified hotel management team. Besides 50 jobs being restored, profits would be reinvested into the community to provide supplemental funding for youth, environmental, human services and educational programs.
Upon full implementation of the plan, Pau Hana would generate an income of about $150,000 annually, a big number for a small island.
The community's vision also calls for Pau Hana to serve as an extended learning center associated with the island's new community college, which opened in 1998 just down the street from the hotel. Pau Hana will offer students "hands-on" learning to pursue careers in the culinary arts, hotel management and landscape design.
The Pau Hana Ohana Community Foundation, the organization trying to raise funds to buy the Pau Hana Inn, can be contacted at (808) 558-0228 or via e-mail at pauhanamolokai@yahoo.com
At the end of last year, the community had almost given up. The Ohana's year-long effort to secure hotel zoning stalled in government bureaucracy and a buyer who intended to develop condos on part of the Pau Hana property had opened escrow for the $1.5 million asking price.
The Maui County Council revisited the zoning issue and gave unanimous approval to "hotel district" zoning for Pau Hana's oceanfront acreage. On May 3, the community received a good-news letter from a new prospective buyer scheduled to close escrow on June 15. The buyer managed to negotiate a lower sale price with the ranch, and offered the community an option to purchase Pau Hana for $875,000. However, the bargain sale is contingent on the community securing both final zoning approval and its funding by June 10.
To meet the deadline, the community is seeking an individual or company willing to provide a 12-month loan for $875,000. This would provide the community with site control for 12 months, which in turn would give the Ohana the time to revise estimates of renovation costs. It would also allow time to work with government and private funding sources to secure commitments to repay the acquisition loan and to fund working capital requirements.
In 1998, the federal government designated Molokai as an Enterprise Community, which gives community-based developments priority review status with grant-funding agencies.
Pau Hana, with its 100-year old banyan tree, is part of Molokai's heritage. Pau Hana is a nostalgic experience of local Molokai, one that should be preserved so residents and visitors alike will be able to enjoy this authentic slice of "old Hawaii."
Matthew Adolpho Jr., Robert Waipa Purdy and DeGray Vanderbilt
are members of the Pau Hana Ohana Community Foundation.