Column: Revenue generation versus affordable housing in Halawa

Recent proposals for using the Aloha Stadium site for increased affordable housing ignore several realities that must be a part of the stadium development discussion.

The Salt Lake-Aiea region already shoulders a disproportionate burden of hosting the state’s critical infrastructure. Our communities have sacrificed so much that the rest of Oahu can enjoy critical state services with no impact on their lives.

Imagine your community having to house a prison (and soon the new Oahu Community Correctional Center jail), the federal detention center, the rail line with multiple stops, the airport, and freeways and highways randomly running throughout your community and surrounding your schools. All this state infrastructure disconnects natural communities and makes the state’s infrastructure problems, our community problems.

We’re not against affordable housing — quite the contrary. Our community already helps more than most to provide affordable housing options. Right across the street from Aloha Stadium are Oahu’s fourth-largest public housing complex and multiple low-income properties with hundreds of government-subsidized units in walk-ups and apartment towers. Additionally, a development slated for Aiea’s Kam Drive-In site will include 1,400 new rental and for-sale units, with 60% of the units classified as affordable.

The state owns a lot of other lands where affordable housing is needed and should be built. Many of those parcels cannot be leveraged for such strategic economic opportunity as the Aloha Stadium.

A study commissioned in 2019 looked at six sites for a new stadium, including the University of Hawaii-Manoa campus. The results indicated that the current location was the ideal spot. The UH’s six football games are important each season but cannot cover the facility’s expenses.

Interest is being expressed by the United Soccer League and Major League Rugby to establish franchises here. Combined, they could add another 50 days of stadium usage each year. This is like having “Magnum, P.I.” and “NCIS: Hawaii” here, rather than chasing occasional movies or professional football games. In addition, there is great interest in concerts, monster trucks and other events to ensure the financial viability of the stadium.

While we fully expect excitement on the field, the stadium’s economic opportunities are even more exciting. We have a golden opportunity to turn the asphalt into an exciting development — everything from shopping and restaurants to hotels and housing (3,000 affordable units are already on the drawing board). Don’t forget the 1.8 million customers across the street who visit Pearl Harbor and the Arizona Memorial and have nothing to do afterward. Proceeds from the development can pay for affordable housing elsewhere.

The New Aloha Stadium Entertainment District (NASED) will generate revenues. Affordable housing consumes revenues. Proceeds from the development can pay for affordable housing elsewhere.

The residents of Salt Lake-Aiea are generous people who typically don’t complain and have been much more accepting than other communities who protest any form of development. It is time for others to respect our communities and the sacrifices we’ve made and continue to make for every other community.

The Aloha Stadium property needs to remain a stadium and mixed-use development. Our region wants the economic opportunity envisioned in this project and the required community rebuilding after decades of dumping all manner of state projects on this one region. Our community shouldn’t have to shoulder all of the state’s burdens. We’re already doing our part.

The Salt Lake-Aiea community has been preparing for an entertainment district for a dozen years; we are eager to see this dream realized, and we need to see NASED move more expeditiously.

Chace Shigemasa chairs the Aliamanu-Salt Lake-Foster Village-Airport Neighborhood Board.