A bill that would have given the Aloha Stadium Authority expanded powers to move toward redeveloping the 98-acre parcel containing the current stadium met a drawn-out and somewhat surprising demise Friday.

Senate Bill 994 did not make it out of conference committee after five tries.

As recently as Thursday afternoon, supporters thought the bill was likely to reach Gov. David Ige’s desk, despite being postponed Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Friday it was postponed again at its scheduled 2:30 p.m. meeting to shortly after 4 p.m., where Sen. Glenn Wakai, who chaired the combined House and Senate conference committee, finally announced its death on deadline day, invoking what he termed “the mercy rule.”

“I don’t know what the hang-up is — there is no money (involved in the bill) — but (the) Finance and Ways and Means (committees) were not giving me the green light,” Wakai said.

Had the measure cleared the conference committee, it would have gone to a floor vote Tuesday, where passage would have sent it to Ige.

The bill was a major part of the multipronged legislation the Authority had campaigned for seeking to chart the future of the deteriorating 42-year-old facility.

“This would have put everything in a nice package with a bow on it,” Authority chairman Ross Yamasaki said of the bills concerning the stadium. “But I don’t think it diminishes what they have given to us so far.”

Wakai said it was more important that House Bill 100, which would provide $10 million for an environmental impact statement and master planning, is going to the floor. “That is far more powerful (of a statement about the state’s intentions) than saying, ‘We give you these powers but we give you no money, so just sit tightly.’”

Stadium officials said the EIS could take 18 months or more to complete.

Wakai said the bill would have been “nice to have, but not absolutely necessary for the Authority to go full force. The reality is that we’re not there yet (to determining redevelopment).”

A state-hired consultant’s report released this month projected it would cost the state $423 million (in 2017 dollars) just in basic health and safety maintenance to keep the current facility operational for the next 25 years, while the cost of building a new 30,000- to 35,000-seat facility, expandable to 40,000, would be $324.5 million (in 2017 dollars).

Senate Bill 994 will be up for reconsideration next session.

‘The fact that it made it this far in the process means that a lot of legislators supported it,” Yamasaki said.

“We’ll keep plugging away, keep chasing that dream,” stadium manager Scott Chan said.