After more than 20 years of renting office space, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs has told the Hawaii Community Development Authority it is interested in buying or leasing parcels of land in Kakaako for a new headquarters. OHA considers
Ala Moana movePossible locations include the
site of an old pumping stationBy Pat Omandam
pomandam@starbulletin.com
The board of trustees also agreed yesterday to spend up to $75,000 to hire consultants to come up with a feasibility study of using the Ala Moana pumping station, saying trustees hoped it would lead to a lease agreement with the authority this fall.
"I think it's very important that OHA find a facility that can meet our needs as well as to find possible co-location sites for other Hawaiian agencies," said Haunani Apoliona, OHA chairwoman. "And we don't know what the outcome of this feasibility (study) will be, but OHA needs to stay on course in terms of this goal of locating a permanent home."
High among the list of properties in Kakaako is a 3.2-acre portion that is bordered by Ilalo and Keawe streets and Ala Moana. The land includes the historic 102-year-old sewage-pumping station, which has been empty since 1955.
Teny Takahashi, director of planning and development at HCDA, outlined the authority's development plans for Kakaako at an OHA meeting yesterday and provided some details on how the parcel OHA is interested in might look in a few years.
For example, the authority wants to realign a portion of Keawe Street makai of Ala Moana so it lines up with the mauka portion of the street, which borders the Diamond Head side of the CompUSA property.
Takahashi said there are also plans to extend Punchbowl Street through Kakaako, where it will connect with the Ward Avenue-Ilalo Street extension now under construction.
Takahashi said the authority has tried unsuccessfully to realign a large underground sewage line that runs through OHA's proposed site. The line, which services all of Honolulu, feeds into an adjacent station that pumps the sewage to the Sand Island Sewage Treatment Plant.
There is no problem with odor from the facility or the sewage line, he assured trustees. "It smells like a baby," Takahashi said. "Nothing is opened up to the air."
The proposed OHA office complex site would be a block from the University of Hawaii's new medical school and a few blocks from a proposed 2,000-stall parking structure the authority will build.
One idea is for the OHA complex to incorporate the old pumping station as a Hawaiian-themed restaurant. Built in 1900, the blue-stone building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
OHA wants about 30,000 square feet of office space in its proposed office complex and plans to rent or lease any existing spaces, preferably to Hawaiian agencies. Its current lease for the fifth- and 12th-floor office spaces at Pacific Park Plaza expires in February 2004. In previous years, OHA has paid close to $1 million in rent, but has a current annual rent of $612,000.
Two years ago, OHA had considered buying the historic downtown post office building, which the state now plans to buy.
Trustee Linda Dela Cruz said she wanted a Kakaako site nearer to the ocean. But Clyde Namuo, OHA administrator, said building height restrictions on those properties are much lower than on property nearer to Ala Moana.
Lela Hubbard, a Hawaiian beneficiary and activist, said the proposed OHA site would end up on ceded lands, or land that used to belonged to the Hawaiian monarchy. Because the University of Hawaii's new medical school is to pay the authority $1 a year to use ceded lands, OHA should not pay more than $1, she said.
