A future without Aloha Stadium

New homes are not being built fast enough to meet the demands of Oahu’s growing population. The gap is the widest it has been in at least 50 years, with the island falling behind at a rate of roughly 2,000 homes a year at current housing construction rates, according to the state’s top economist.

The disparity means that monthly rents for the meager stock that is available are sky-high and the median sales price for a single-family home on the island has hit a record $650,000. That may be good news for landlords with units to lease and for resident-homeowners rapidly building equity in their properties, but it makes life miserable for house-hunters and apartment-seekers, especially the low- and middle-income folks who despair of ever moving up in such an expensive market. The lack of affordable housing is even more dire for the most desperate of Oahu’s residents: homeless people, individuals and families, who are getting by in shelters or surviving on the streets.

So it is encouraging that the comprehensive review underway into the future of Aloha Stadium seems to be considering relocating the facility as a serious option, which would clear the way for workforce housing to be built in a central location within easy access of Oahu’s rail-transit line. Aloha Stadium is slated to be transit stop No. 9 on the Kapolei-to-Ala Moana rail line, which is projected to be fully operational by 2019. If workforce housing is built at the stadium’s Halawa site, residents would have an easy daily commute by train to downtown Honolulu or Leeward Oahu.

Of course, the thought of dismantling Hawaii’s largest outdoor arena generates immediate questions about where a new stadium would be constructed, and there are no shortage of ideas, ranging from feasible to fantastic. Fans tout the potential of West Oahu (near the new University of Hawaii campus there), to Moiliili (make more room where Honolulu Stadium once stood), to Kakaako Makai (on underutilized land already zoned for commercial use) to numerous sites in between.

The point is that now is the time to be thinking about all this, with the largest public-works project in Hawaii’s history tearing up the landscape and sites all along that rail-transit system ripe for reimagining. Policymakers have a priceless opportunity now to impact life on Oahu long into the future, and the Aloha Stadium site figures mightily in that vision. Oahu needs a premier sports stadium, but the size and location of that facility merit careful analysis, especially considering Oahu’s dire housing needs and the fact that the current arena is seriously underutilized.

The 39-year-old stadium, which is home to the UH football team but run by the state’s Aloha Stadium Authority, is the subject of two studies at the moment. A narrowly focused one commissioned by the UH Athletics Department will determine space requirements for a smaller, 30,000-seat multipurpose facility; the report will estimate the necessary budget and a construction timeline, but not propose a site.

A broader review, contracted out by the state, will consider the history of the site and its best future use, which should address current federal rules restricting use of the land. The scope-of-services agreement for that eight-part study says the second phase of the review would consider, for example, whether the importance of developing workforce housing on Oahu trumps the usual "highest and best use" guide in real estate development. That profit-driven standard relies on the bottom line to set development priorities, but it should not rule the day when formulating public policy, especially with the need for affordable workforce housing on Oahu so acute.

Aloha Stadium’s fate is of interest to far more than football fans. Perhaps the site will move Oahu closer to its housing goals.