COURTESY OF CINCPAC
This is a rendition of how the new CINCPAC headquarters
building at Camp Smith will look after it is completed.
Construction is scheduled to begin in summer 2003
and end in the fall.

Military spending
builds in isles

Most of the 16 projects in
the $353 million construction
budget will be for the Navy

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By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com

Proposed Hawaii military construction projects planned by the Bush administration for fiscal year 2002 total $353 million, with more than half of them earmarked for the Navy.

Topping the request is $34.5 million to build the Pacific Command's new headquarters at Camp Smith. The new $86 million Nimitz-MacArthur Pacific Command Center will be built by Dick Pacific Construction Co. Ltd. Construction on the six-story, 274,500-square-foot structure will begin in the summer of 2003, with completion scheduled for the fall.

It will be named after World War II Pacific commanders Adm. Chester W. Nimitz and Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Nimitz was commander in chief in the Pacific; MacArthur was supreme commander and later commander in chief of the Southwest Pacific area, making them the first joint commanders in the Pacific.

The current headquarters complex, originally built to be a Navy hospital in 1941, will remain as the headquarters for Marine Corps Pacific Forces and will house some of the Pacific Command's other offices.

It is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Buildings.

This is the last of the appropriations needed to complete the building, with $15.9 million appropriated two years ago and $35.6 million last year.

Nine of the 16 projects are at Pearl Harbor, with the remainder housing projects at Schofield Barracks, Wheeler Army Air Field and Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe Bay.

Pearl Harbor would get more than $100 million for new construction or improvements. This includes:

>> $40 million to renovate Smallwood Hall bachelors' enlisted quarters and to build another, similar facility for 112 single enlisted sailors.

>> $16.8 million to build 70 new family units at Hale Moku.

>> $16.9 million to install a new 32-inch sewer line and reline an existing 27-inch line from the shipyard to Fort Kamehameha waste treatment plant.

>> $7.9 million to build two two-story buildings and renovate a third at Pearl Harbor's dry dock. The buildings will consolidate repair operations that are now done in temporary structures.

>> $12.1 million to modify existing dry-dock electrical systems to provide power to ships undergoing repairs.

>> $6 million to upgrade power and electrical distribution systems at two Naval Magazine wharves.

The Marine base at Kaneohe would receive $47 million to replace 172 housing units and build a post office.

The budget also requests $5.1 million for a command-and-control range building at the Army's Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island.

The Army would also get $73 million for a Schofield Barracks complex on Wilson Street and another barracks complex at Wheeler Army Air Field.

It also is slated to receive another $11.8 million to build a two-story building at Pearl Harbor for its transportation corps ship operations.