Old smokestack
safe on Maui
LAHAINA >> Kaanapali Development Corp. will demolish a major portion of the industrial site at the former Pioneer Mill.
But unlike a few years ago, the demolition plans don't include the landmark 225-foot smokestack.
The former sugar mill, part of the town since the 1860s, is within view of the main highway leading into Lahaina town.
Jeffrey Rebugio, the corporation's project manager, said the firm made the decision in response to some residents' desire to keep the smokestack.
The firm, acting as the agent in the demolition for landowner Pioneer Mill Co. LLC, has applied for county demolition permits to clear the sites north and south of Lahainaluna Road, Rebugio said.
Rebugio said the firm wants to avoid liability problems and make the site safe. He said the site has been a haven for rats and mosquitos. Children ride bicycles in one area and someone is raising chickens there, despite locked gates at the property.
The firm plans to develop affordable housing in the southern section. Rebugio said there are no firm plans for the 19.6-acre industrial site north of Lahainaluna Road, an area that includes the smokestack, a green office building near a Shell service station, and a coffee factory building.
George "Keoki" Freeland, executive director of the Lahaina Restoration Foundation, said he and other people have been talking with the Kaanapali officials about preserving the smokestack and some business people have expressed an interest in developing a museum.
Freeland said he's been looking for people interested in forming a preservation group focusing on the plantation era.
A 2001 engineering report estimated repairs to the smokestack would cost nearly $300,000, Rebugio said.
Rebugio said the firm has no plans to repair the smokestack and he wants to make sure any plan to preserve it is "real."
He said some years back, people expressed an interest in preserving the smokestack at Oahu Sugar Co. in Waipahu but when it came time to pay to restore it, no group with money stepped forward.
In 2001, Amfac Land Co. scuttled plans to raze the Pioneer Mill smokestack after community members objected.