There have been plenty of hurry-up offenses at Aloha Stadium in its 42 years and now it is time to run one for the sake of the aging facility.
Proponents of lifting the federal deed restriction on use of the stadium’s acreage face a two-minute drill of sorts in the need to get the paperwork signed, sealed and delivered before the Obama Administration exits the halls of power.
The more than decade-long process was to have been completed this past summer. Then, by early fall. And, then…
Now, with the holidays rapidly approaching and president-elect Donald Trump’s administration soon to take office in Washington D. C., there is heightened urgency.
The idea is to have the entire parcel of nearly 100 acres unencumbered so that when the Hawaii legislative session convenes in just over two months lawmakers will have a clear view of the options surrounding the increasingly expensive-to-maintain facility. Including the prospect of issuing a request for proposal to help underwrite the replacement or renovation of the stadium.
When what would become Aloha Stadium appeared on the drawing board in 1967 it was initially a city project, one that acquired 56 acres of former federal surplus land. It came with the restriction from the U. S. Department of the Interior that the parcel would be used for recreational purposes. When the state took on the project that had become too expensive for the city, it inherited federal and city deed restrictions.
Since the 1990s, when it became obvious that the facility was heading toward an expensive decision on its future, officials have sought to have the restrictions lifted as a means to encouraging commercial uses that might help defray the costs of replacement or renovation.
Scott Chan, for example, has painstakingly spent much of his nine-year tenure as stadium manager trying to navigate the bureaucratic maze involved. “It has been a long and winding road and we are almost there,” Chan said Wednesday.
A breakthrough came when the feds agreed to accept a 66-acre parcel on Maui for a sports complex in exchange for the Halawa land.
The Honolulu City Council and Mayor Kirk Caldwell have since agreed, leaving only the federal documents to be executed.
Now the paperwork apparently rests on the desk of the West Regional Office of the National Park Service in San Francisco. After which it comes back here and then…
Well, you get the idea.
The fear isn’t that the Trump Administration might sink the whole deal — though that could be a possibility — as much as it is that a new Secretary of the Interior might want to look it over and, in the process, put it on the bottom of a large stack of to-do items.
With a rail stop coming to Aloha Stadium and the possibilities surrounding transit-oriented development, the stadium has a lot to offer potential developers. But there is little sense in advancing an RFP process until the state has clear title to the land.
Meanwhile, leaky, creaky Aloha Stadium waits.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
