As Honolulu Star-Advertiser followers have noted, Aloha Stadium is not essential. “We have been living without it for four years, ” one reader commented.
Today the ongoing community concern over the “maybe” stadium site and plans for University of Hawaii football games is as vaporous as the mists sweeping down Manoa Valley to the University of Hawaii.
Perhaps we should just skip construction plans for the new stadium for UH football games and instead, battle over what to call it.
“Natatorium II” comes to mind because like the neglected and therefore unused swimming pool built next to the Pacific Ocean, the stadium and the natatorium are in some ways alike. Both owe their existence to public funds. It cost $37 million to build Aloha Stadium in 1975. The natatorium was opened in 1927 as a public memorial to World War I veterans and casualties.
Although the city hasn’t discussed the pool for several years, city plans show a cost estimate of $31.8 million to rehabilitate the pool, compared to demolishing the pool at a cost of $35.2 million.
Like the stadium, both facilities have been closed after being declared structurally unsafe.
Aloha Stadium had a great run serving as the home field of the UH Rainbow Warriors, from 1975 through 2020.
The state administration intends to replace that stadium with a new structure in roughly the same spot, but the plans are as definite as a wobbly political football can be.
“The lack of progress regarding the New Aloha Stadium and Entertainment District project in Halawa has been detrimental to the State,” a spokesperson for Gov. Josh Green said in recent legislative testimony.
The lack of support showed when 14 legislators voted against the plan and passed a bill appropriating money to build a football stadium on UH’s Manoa campus.
The bill is still wending through the legislative process — but critics said if that actually becomes the state plan, it would be both a policy disaster and a financial nightmare.
In essence critics said it would show developers planning to bid on the project that the state is not serious with building a new stadium.
“The measure may also expose the State to claims from development and finance entities who have committed and expended significant sums in support of the State’s ongoing and active procurement activities,” members of the state administration said in testimony.
Kalbert Young, UH chief financial officer, said the university prefers the plan to build a new stadium in Halawa that is supposed to be ready in 2028 for uses that include UH football, according to a report by Star-Advertiser reporter Andrew Gomes.
“We don’t want the money and we don’t want this stadium,” Young said.
There, that is clear talk from a seasoned and akamai state administrator. Legislators would be wise to take the advice.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.
