Feedback on building the new Aloha Stadium shows concerns over financial feasibility

The people who know how to do it have continued interest in building a new Aloha Stadium, and state planners say they still expect it to be ready in time for the 2028 football season, with no public cost beyond the $400 million in bonds allocated by the Legislature in 2022.

But the just-completed market-sounding process also confirmed wariness of potential contractors. Some used to developing and building and then getting out of the way are unfamiliar with the develop, build, operate, maintain concept Gov. Josh Green shifted to for the New Aloha Stadium Entertainment District after former Gov. David Ige wanted to return to a stand-alone stadium plan.

According to the market-sounding summary:

“There is, in general, market interest in the Project; however, this is strongly qualified or abated by significant concerns regarding the Project’s financial feasibility. The State should, as a priority, finalize an updated financial analysis and determine how best to share this analysis with prospective (or actual) offerors.”

NASED planners said they weren’t surprised by the findings, and are confident they can address all concerns adequately.

“Actually, this helps us firm up 2028 (as the year for completion),” Public Works Administrator Chris Kinimaka said. “With respect to funding, the market sounding gave us more information to help us pencil out financials and firm that part up. We’re still quite optimistic on that (the public won’t be expected to pay more). The main thing we’re getting is we still have competitive teams interested in the project. No one said we have to go completely back to the drawing board. The issues are workable — that is the positive reinforcement we got.”

People can make their own judgment by reading the report at nased. hawaii.gov/nased- market-sounding.

“Concerns about the financials are not that surprising,” NASED consultant David Harris of WT Partnership said. “We’re updating those in parallel, so we’ll have a brand new set of numbers to approach and hope to share that in the near future.”

NASED can help match builders with operators, Harris said.

“The good thing about P3 developments is we’re used to linking and facilitating for good outcomes,” he said. ”We think that will go well, but some might be forced marriages. There are more developers, more contractors, more financiers than there are stadium operators.”

This is the second market-sounding process for NASED as the strategic plan to replace the original Aloha Stadium has been changed by Ige and now Green.

“We typically do this for a lot of new P3s,” Harris said. “We want to make sure issues are resolved ahead of time so we can hit the ground running. That last thing we want is to issue (request for proposal) documents and no one is around to want it. It’s a confirmatory process.”