Aloha Halawa District Partners has met state requirements and received approval as master developer for the New Aloha Stadium Entertainment District, with the planned opening of a new stadium in August 2028 still intact.

A state evaluation committee “wrapped up its work this past week,” stadium manager Ryan Andrews said at Thursday’s monthly meeting of the Stadium Authority.

AHDP, the state and other stakeholders now enter a phase called “diligence and discussion,” with the goal of a final contract in June.

Diligence and discussion includes a wide variety of tasks, deputy stadium manager Chris Sadayasu said. They include finalizing financing and development plans, including meeting to coordinate with city and state officials, site condition surveys, developing permitting processes. licensing agreements and project management plans, including stakeholder and community engagement plans.

When the contract is signed, destruction of the 50,000-seat facility in Halawa and construction of its replacement with capacity for at least 25,000 can begin.

The University of Hawaii football team played its home games at the original Aloha Stadium since its opening in 1975 until 2020 when it was closed for safety reasons. The Rainbow Warriors have since played their home games on campus at the Ching Athletic Complex, which was formerly UH football’s practice field.

While the new multiuse stadium is the centerpiece, there is much more at stake with NASED; the project also includes development of 78 acres surrounding the 20 covered by the stadium.

When final agreement is reached, the companies comprising AHDP receive $450 million authorized by the state Legislature to build and run the stadium, and in exchange can profit from other NASED development. If the public-private partnership works as planned, taxpayers incur no additional stadium costs, and housing and other real estate gets built in the area.

“The governor (Josh Green) has made it clear that it’s important for our state to have a quality stadium,” said Business, Economic Development and Tourism Director James Kunane Tokioka in a news release Thursday from NASED. “I am looking forward to the next phase where we will be able to finalize the details of AHDP’s proposal and continue our progress toward creating a great new stadium, much-needed residential housing and mixed-use transit- oriented development to revitalize the surrounding community.”

AHDP is a group of local, national and international companies including Development Ventures Group Inc., Stanford Carr Development LLC, Ameresco Inc. and Aloha Stadium Community Development LLC (The Cordish Co.) as the lead equity members; RMA Architects, Populous, SB Architects, Henning Larsen, Alakea Design Group and WCIT Architects as the design team; Hawaiian Dredging Construction Co. Inc. and AECOM Hunt as the construction team; and Castle &Cooke Hawai‘i and Wilson Okamoto Corp. as other team members.

Because the group is still in a procurement process with the state, AHDP is prohibited from commenting on its proposal.

But more information about AHDP’s plans for the stadium, including renderings, will likely be available before the end of this year, Andrews said. Other details of AHDP’s proposal will be made public through community outreach during the diligence and discussion phase, according to the NASED news release.