New natatorium plan needs money

A fresh plan to restore the shuttered Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial’s saltwater pool area with an innovative wave-energy design has a few appealing answers to questions that have stalled progress at the site for decades.

Even so, many nagging questions remain. Among them: What’s the construction price tag? How about future maintenance and operation costs? And should the city pick up such responsibility while it’s already stretched thin handling even everyday matters such as patching ever-surfacing potholes on its streets?

The plan’s supporters will be given opportunity to pinpoint compelling answers if the city proceeds to vet it along with other proposals now undergoing an environmental impact statement process, which will wrap up in 2018 or 2019 following a public comment period.

Commissioned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and supported by Friends of the Natatorium and others, the plan announced this week is offered as a lower-cost alternative to an eyebrow-raising $70 million full makeover option that took shape about three years ago.

Key to the lower cost is a design that creates “essentially a sheltered ocean environment. … The natatorium could be regulated as a ‘marine pool’ or ‘protective cove’ and would not require the addition of special pumps or drainage infrastructure and related maintenance,” according to the proposal.

The natatorium swim basin’s seawall would be replaced with individual chevrons, which prevent wave action against the bleachers yet allow water to circulate in the basin, according to the proposal drafted by Hans Krock, emeritus professor of ocean and resources engineering at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Alfred Yee, consulting engineer for Pearl Harbor’s USS Arizona Memorial.

Opened in 1927 to honor the 101 Hawaii residents who died in World War I, the site is owned by the state and operated by the city. Following three decades of neglect, the natatorium was closed to the public in 1979.

In the mid-1990s, the National Trust for Historic Preservation put the site on its “11 Most Endangered list.”

A few year later, former Mayor Jeremy Harris pushed for restoration, with an environmental impact study completed and funding in place. But his successor, former Mayor Mufi Hannemann later dropped the effort and weighed other options, such as scrapping the pool and bleachers and saving just the archway facade.

In 2013, Mayor Kirk Caldwell and former Gov. Neil Abercrombie announced a proposal to demolish the swim stadium, expand the beach and move a restored archway inland. They pitched the $18 million idea as affordable compared to the full-restoration estimate, pegged at $70 million.

At that time, Abercrombie said: “The natatorium simply can’t go on the way it is. It’s almost immoral.” It’s also unsafe, with salty air and waves undermining the site’s aging construction materials.

Friends of the Natatorium maintains that a partnership with the National Trust is the best bet to save the structure, which was among the nation’s first “living war memorials,” which also include athletic fields, parks and bridges intended for various public uses.

If the chevron-design alternative is accepted, said National Trust senior field officer Brian Turner, the nonprofit would work with local stakeholders on a fundraising campaign for the natatorium, which it named a national treasure in 2014. It now has a capital campaign underway to save the Miami Marine Stadium.

Mo Radke, Friends of the Natatorium president, said: “If the city would say it’s willing to let Friends of the Natatorium and the National Trust move forward and give us two years, I could show you the money.”

Before any proposal gets the go-ahead, however, all involved must take a hard look at the costs tied to construction — and for upkeep on a site already blighted by over six decades of disrepair.