New movie theater planned for Lihue

Oregon-based Hollywood Theaters will expand its Hawaii presence to Kauai with a nine-screen theater at Lihue’s Kukui Grove Shopping Center.

The Kukui Marketplace Stadium 9 is expected to open in early summer of 2013, at 30,000 square feet with 1,274 seats.

The theater will use digital projection and have 3-D capability.

One auditorium will include a 67-foot-wide screen the company says will be the largest in the state. It also will have 300 high-back seats that rock, with wider-than-standard seat cushions and 48 inches of legroom between rows, as well as retractable armrests.

The $10 million project will create 100 construction jobs and roughly 30 permanent jobs, officials said.

It will be near the stand-alone Kukui Grove Cinema, a long-operating, locally owned four-screen theater.

Wind farm’s battery rig A-OK, maker says

The battery system installed at the 30-megawatt Kahuku Wind project performed exceptionally during its first year of operation, officials from the system’s manufacturer said Wednesday.

Since its commissioning in March 2011, the 15-megawatt battery system has charged and discharged more than 1.9 gigawatt-hours of energy, an amount equal to the electricity consumed by about 190 average homes in one year, according to officials from Xtreme Power

The battery system has the ability to smooth output from Kahuku Wind. By absorbing or releasing power as needed, the battery delivers a steady supply of power to the Hawaiian Electric Co.’s electrical grid.

In one instance a voltage loss along the transmission line to which Kahuku Wind is connected caused an instant loss of approximately 14 megawatts of power. Within milliseconds the battery system responded with enough power to make up for the loss and help stabilize the grid, Xtreme Power said.

Chef Mavro again placed on top 40 list

Honolulu’s Chef Mavro restaurant at 1969 S. King St. is again among the top 40 restaurants in the U.S., according to Gayot.com, the magazine-turned-online culinary guide.

The restaurant was first listed in 2007 and has been the only Hawaii restaurant each year the list has been issued since then.

"Chef Mavro hopes for this honor each year because Gayot’s focus (is) on the cuisine," said Donna Jung, publicist for and wife of chef, restaurateur and James Beard Award winner George Mavrothalassitis, for whom the fine-dining venue is named.

Chef Mavro shared the ranking with internationally renowned restaurants such as Spago in Beverly Hills, Calif., The French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., and Le Cirque in New York City.

Maui resort expansion settlement reached

WAILUKU » A settlement allows a Maui resort to proceed with an expansion while allaying concerns about possible Native Hawaiian burials at the site.

The settlement provisions include reducing Grand Wailea’s new rooms from 310 to 300 and reducing a proposed wing from six stories to four.

There will also be extensive archaeological testing at the wing’s site.

Maui County Planner Ann Cua disclosed the settlement at a planning commission meeting Tuesday, but settlement documents were not ready for members to discuss, so the issue will come up at the April 10 meeting, the Maui News reported.

The Grand Wailea had proposed a $250 million, 310-room expansion, but owners of neighboring villas and the former chairwoman of the Maui-Lanai Burial Council intervened. Their requests to intervene were denied in 2009, but a court later reversed that ruling.

With a settlement in place, there will be no contested case proceeding, Cua said, and hotel owners can renew an application for permits.

B. Martin Luna, attorney for hotel owners Pyramid Project Management, said he’s pleased about the settlement and that "we can start moving on the project."

The hotel owners "recognized that it was better to know what they are dealing with (concerning burials) before committing to construction," said Dana Naone Hall, the burial council’s former chairwoman who appealed the intervention denial to the Circuit Court.

The settlement establishes a protocol to identify burials before construction, she said. If Native Hawaiian burials and remains are found and deemed necessary to keep in place, nothing will be built on top.

ON THE MOVE

The Gas Company has promoted Jill Tokunaga to vice president of sales and marketing from vice president of sales. Her role includes overall responsibility for TGC’s marketing initiatives. Before joining TGC, Tokunaga was a sales executive for Sprint Nextel.

ABC Stores has promoted Wade S. Kojima to accounting manager from accounting analyst. His accounting experience includes roles as a senior auditor and assistant controller for a CPA firm and a property management company.

Certified Hawaii, an Associa company, has announced the promotion of Andrew Thomas to controller. He has worked for Certified Hawaii for nine years and was a senior accountant with Chaney Brooks for six years before the company was acquired by Certified.

The Hawaii State Bar Association has named Levi Hookano as new programs director. He was previously a director of career development and alumni relations for the University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law.

Correction: The company that makes the batteries for Kahuku Wind is Xtreme Power. An earlier brief on the website and on page B6 of today’s newspaper said the company is Extreme Power.