A $2 million floor at Honolulu Airport that was installed for November’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum is a shiny showpiece that might be just a bit too glossy.
By some accounts, passengers arriving at the airport often slip and fall on the more than 15,000 square feet of glossy, sand-colored terrazzo flooring featuring Hawaiian words and a 1,800-square-foot, 35-foot-diameter brass-and-nickel-colored compass.
The airport has duller, terrazzo flooring in outdoor areas. But airport officials insisted on the shinier, indoor flooring for the airport’s heavily traveled Ewa breezeway at the intersection of the international and interisland terminals, said Micah Watts, president of Stone Masters Inc. of Mililani, which did the work.
"No one normally puts smooth, polished terrazzo where it’s exposed to the elements, such as rain," Watts said. "We’ve always made it clear that this is an experimental process. The intent was to make it pretty and inviting to passengers. With it comes the negative effects that the floor will be slippier."
Watts said he has seen passengers slipping on the floor "but there have been no reports of people getting hurt."
Caroline Sluyter, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation, which oversees airport operations, said, "We have zero formal complaints of slip or fall accidents. That doesn’t mean people haven’t slipped, but we have had no complaints lodged."
She disputed Watts’ assertion that airport engineers insisted on installing a floor intended for indoor use in an outdoor breezeway exposed to rain.
"Categorically no," Sluyter said. "It is the right floor. … We have no written documentation of any contractors informing us that this is the wrong type of terrazzo."
But contractors are installing a new anti-slip surface over the new floor — at no additional cost to the DOT — because the original surface "did not hold up to the wear and tear that surface gets," Sluyter said.
She called the project "really pretty."
It was designed by an airport engineer with consultation from Nainoa Thompson of the Polynesian Voyaging Society.
"It’s supposed to look like the sand," Sluyter said. "As you get closer to the compass, it turns into the shoreline. There’s a green part that represents the Pali or vegetation. It’s supposed to represent a three-dimensional space. As you go up to where the compass is, it’s supposed to be in space with the different constellations. It’s like when you come home or leave, you have the navigational compass."
Watts hopes to find a solution for the slippery floor in the next six weeks or so by applying a sealer that includes granulated glass for extra traction.
"The biggest concern always has been the safety of the public," he said.
Danny Chavarria, owner of Ohana Flooring, bid unsuccessfully for the project after installing indoor and outdoor terrazzo flooring at the airport’s interisland terminal.
The specifications for the terrazzo flooring at the confluence of the international and interisland terminals called for an inappropriate, indoor terrazzo surface, Chavarria said.
"It wasn’t a good system because it’s open to the weather," he said. "It’s smooth and it’s open to the elements. When they say it’s a breezeway, they really mean it’s a breezeway. There’s wind and moisture coming through there all the time."
The plan to coat the floor with a grittier, glass-based sealer will create a new problem when maintenance workers try to keep the floor shiny, Chavarria said.
"How would you clean sand paper?" Chavarria asked. "That’s what they’re trying to simulate."
