Funds are needed to help transition to new stadium, lawmakers ask for $10.6 million

Lawmakers are seeking to have $10.6 million budgeted to help Aloha Stadium stay in operation through 2025, the Stadium Authority was told during a briefing at its monthly meeting on Thursday.

The action comes after Senate Bill 1033 was declared dead in the Legislature this month. The bill had sought a $1.5 million “emergency appropriation” to provide funds for stadium payroll and other expenses for the current fiscal year and the beginning of FY 2022, which starts July 1.

Neither appropriation would provide funding for health and safety repairs but are aimed at allowing the stadium to continue spectator-less events in the bowl and elsewhere on its property, including graduations, through December 2025.

“We recognize that there are resources and costs associated with transitioning the existing stadium operations and resources to meet the requirements of the new stadium district,” stadium manager Scott Chan said. “At this time, we are working with our consultants to provide the strategic framework to identify, develop and refine these resource requirements to meet this end.”

Original projections called for the successor to the 46-year old facility to open in September 2023, but those have been scaled back pending the selection and contracting of a priority-listed developer in 2022.

Sen. Glenn Wakai (D, Kalihi-Pearl Harbor) told the Stadium Authority that legislators are backing a re-written House Bill 1348 as the remaining vehicle to tie up loose ends on governance and other issues needed to advance the NASED project.

Wakai told authority members, “The bill now sits in the Ways and Means Committee and it has a very good chance of being passed.”

In other action, the Stadium Authority approved Hawaii Rally Sports Association autocross events in the lower Halawa parking lot for Aug. 21 and Sept. 11 dates. The events are scheduled to run from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. both dates.