Kokua Line
Kokua Line
Manoa gym is set to open
this weekendQuestion: A lot of us in Manoa wonder what's going on with the new multipurpose building at Manoa Valley District Park. It was finished months ago but no one has moved in. Why has it been vacant for so long?
Answer: Although the $5.8 million joint city-state project to benefit park users and students from Manoa School and other schools was completed this summer, city officials did not sign off on their part of it until recently.
The gym is scheduled to have a "soft opening" this weekend, probably Saturday, following a small blessing ceremony.
"There were some minor problems but they have all been resolved," Rae Loui, director of the city Department of Design & Construction, said Friday. Problems included location of a stove, which created venting problems in the kitchen area, unevenness with the flooring and minor punctures in the ceiling insulation, she said.
"What we were doing the last few months was working out the solutions (to two design problems) to which we will hold the contractor and design consultant responsible," she said.
That means they will pay for additional costs related to replacing the "wrong" louvers, to prevent water from going into the gym, and correcting outside drainage problems, she said.
Although parks officials had some concerns about opening now, the feeling was that the facility could be used while the work takes place, Loui said. "The whole drive is to open the gym for kids when they are on (Christmas) break."
Meanwhile, the Department of Education "hasn't been offered the project for final approval" yet, spokesman Greg Knudsen said last week. He cited drainage problems and hooking up the fire alarm system to the DOE part of the facility. Knudsen said the DOE was told in September that it would take another six months for its side to be available.
Q: I drive to town every rush-hour morning in the right lane of Moanalua Road from Pearl City to downtown. That lane is full of pukas. In fact, the top coat is gone from all lanes on the entire stretch from Kaiser Hospital to Bob's Big Boy. When is the state going to resurface that portion of the highway?
Q: The onramps and offramps for Moanalua Road and Kamehameha Highway in Aiea are in desperate need of resurfacing. When will the state get to fixing these?
A: Relief is about another year away for the main stretch of Moanalua Road.
Resurfacing for Moanalua from the town side of Moanalua Bridge, near Aloha Stadium, to Middle Street is set to go out for bid in March, said Gary Choy, head of the Department of Transportation's Highways Division Design Branch.
Once the bids are in, construction will start four to six months later, he said. The second part of the project will be to resurface H-1 from Middle Street to Kalihi Street.
However, no resurfacing is scheduled for the on- and offramps for Moanalua Road/ Kamehameha Highway. Some patchwork was done recently, Choy noted, so that would probably place that area "in the pipeline for future resurfacing."
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