Plans for memorial will be an improvement

THE ISSUE The Navy will void its contract with a private company managing a tented concession area near the USS Arizona Memorial.

RETAIL operations delivered from a large tent near the USS Arizona Memorial have drawn harsh criticism since it was erected more than a year ago. A decision to transfer management of the Navy-owned land to the National Park Service, which operates the memorial, is an acceptable solution that should result in striking camp.

The 5,000-square-foot tent was pitched in December 2004 to provide hot meals, in addition to trinkets, to add to the inadequately small gift and snack shops inside the memorial's visitors center. However, the tent's appearance was regarded by Pearl Harbor survivors, veterans and politicians as tacky and inappropriate.

The nearly 20,000-square-foot visitors center itself, shoreside from the memorial straddling the sunken ship, is due for replacement. Built in 1980 on land dredged from Pearl Harbor, it has sunk 30 inches, causing cracks and flooding in some areas. The Navy plans to complete construction of a 27,400-square-foot structure by 2008.

While the Park Service has been operating the visitors center, the tented operations are those of a private company subleasing 6.6 acres between the visitors center and the nearby Bowfin Submarine Museum. Navy spokeswoman Agnes Tauyan says the area will become part of the new Arizona Memorial Center as a "consolidated entry gateway and orientation center" for the memorial, the Bowfin, the Battleship Missouri Memorial and the Pacific Aviation Museum.

Meanwhile, other tents will be necessary during construction to accommodate the 5,000 people a day who visit the memorial -- nearly twice the number for which the visitors center was designed. The visitors center and the tent will be closed in May 2007 and the lessee's contract with the Navy will be voided.