State officials have found a new home for a planned $70 million veterans home on Oahu after a troubled search for a suitable site.
The Office of Veterans’ Services, part of the state Department of Defense, has arranged to lease land in Kapolei from another state entity for the 120-bed facility. The arrangement with the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp. follows aborted attempts last year to use a University of Hawaii site near Diamond Head and a city-owned property in Aiea.
HHFDC’s board voted unanimously last month to lease about 7 acres of a larger vacant site makai of a Walmart store in Kapolei for the project, which faces losing $44 million in federal funding if a contractor can’t be picked by March.
“We’re just happy that we can move this forward,” said Col. Ron Han, Office of Veterans’ Services director. “It’s going to be a nice facility.”
Han said the state needs another veterans home to satisfy demand that exceeds the capacity of an existing 60-bed facility at Tripler Army Medical Center in Moanalua and a 95-bed facility the state built in 2008 in Hilo. A 2014 feasibility study showed the need for
173 more beds in a new facility that meets U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs standards and provides services including skilled-nursing and hospice care.
HHFDC’s site was floated as a possibility for the desired two-story building after community objections were raised over a tentative deal to buy a city property comprising a remnant of former Aiea Sugar Mill land that was long slated for a community center to help preserve Aiea’s plantation heritage.
The objections were raised at an Aiea Neighborhood Board meeting in October. At that meeting, Han said his office considered the Aiea site along with land next to UH West Oahu and a vacant UH property between Leahi Hospital and Diamond Head Theatre. He said the Aiea site was best because the UH-West Oahu land lacked infrastructure and the university had other plans for the Diamond Head property.
UH later said it had no alternate plans for its Diamond Head property and was willing to provide the site for a veterans home. But Han said the property was not ideal because its 2.5-acre size would require a taller building. Even the 3.5 acres in Aiea would have been a tight fit, he added.
Some Aiea Neighborhood Board members and representatives of the Aiea Community Association said they support a veterans home in Aiea but not on a site that would displace the planned center.
After the October meeting, HHFDC officials began considering using part of a long-vacant 26-acre parcel it owns in Kapolei.
This site represents the last undeveloped piece of the Villages of Kapolei, a community master-planned by the state that dates back to the 1980s and includes roughly 4,000 homes, a golf course, three schools, parks and other facilities on 888 acres.
In an early phase of the master plan, the 26 acres sometimes referred to as the community’s Northwest Corner were planned for a commercial center, a church, a park-and-ride lot and senior housing. However, the site remained vacant for more than two decades and is occasionally used for fairs and other events.
HHFDC is an agency that helps developers produce affordable housing mainly with financing and land contributions.
In 2013 the agency solicited development proposals for the Northwest Corner and received a bid from a partnership led by San Diego-based OliverMcMillan Inc. to build 414 homes, a retail complex and a 1.2-acre village green.
HHFDC in 2014 accepted the proposal, which called for making about half the homes affordable to residents with low and moderate incomes and involved the developer paying $5 million to buy the land under the homes to be sold and
$1 million a year to lease land developed with commercial space and rental housing. Construction was anticipated to start in 2016 and finish this year, but OliverMcMillan encountered difficulties.
In August the company backed out of the deal because of sewer-connection issues and market changes, according to HHFDC.
The Office of Veterans’ Services anticipates overcoming the sewer issue with its smaller project and will be responsible for preparing traffic and cultural impact assessments.
In November, Veterans’ Services representatives presented the plan to the Makakilo/Kapolei/Honokai Hale Neighborhood Board and were “positively” received, according to D. Kalani Capelouto, board vice chairman.
If the project proceeds smoothly, construction is expected to start by the end of the year and finish in late 2021. HHFDC said it intends to produce a new request for development proposals for the remainder of the site.
