The state Department of Transportation plans to spend $5 million to relocate a privately owned radio antenna in an effort to resolve a complex set of problems that has delayed a $550 million Honolulu Harbor modernization project more than a year.

State lawmakers approved funding to relocate the tower belonging to the broadcasting company called "iHeartRadio" to clear the way for the Kapalama Container Terminal project to move forward to reorganize shipping container operations.

The harbor project at the former Kapalama Military Reservation would increase overseas container capacity at the harbor by developing a new pier and berthing facility for two container ships as well as a 94-acre container yard, gantry cranes and other container handling equipment.

The problem began when state officials notified the Federal Aviation Administration of plans to construct 243-foot gantry cranes at the Kapalama site for unloading ships and handling containers. Similar cranes are already in place at Sand Island.

Ford Fuchigami, director of the state Department of Transportation, said airlines that use Honolulu Airport objected to the height of the gantry cranes, warning the proposed cranes would protrude into a flight corridor that might one day be needed in a type of emergency known as a "one-engine inoperative scenario."

The concern was that if an aircraft lost power in one engine while departing on runway 8-Left, the aircraft might not be able to climb above the cranes.

Honolulu Airport is about 1 mile east of the Kapalama site, and the FAA reviews construction plans in the area to ensure that new structures do not interfere with flight operations.

Those concerns halted the environmental impact statement for the project, effectively delaying the entire effort for a year, Fuchigami said.

"The whole modernization plan for the harbors lay in the balance of this thing," he said.

Fuchigami said he called together the airlines and harbor users to work out a solution, and the answer they finally developed was to propose modifications of the emergency flight patterns to route aircraft around the area where the Kapalama cranes would be built.

However, the proposed new emergency pattern conflicts with a different obstruction, the 447-foot radio tower near Honolulu Community College, Fuchigami said.

The state then began negotiations pertaining to moving the tower, an effort that is expected to cost $5 million. Fuchigami said the broadcasting company has agreed to work with the state on relocation.

"What we’re talking about here is of huge benefit to the state of Hawaii," Fuchigami said.

Now that lawmakers have included $5 million in the state construction budget to relocate the tower, Fuchigami says DOT will do a feasibility study to develop a more detailed plan for the project. No new site for the tower has been selected yet, he said.

"At the end of the day, all I want to do is make the harbors more efficient so it doesn’t cost the shippers so much money to do operations" at Honolulu Harbor, he said.