There are other tenants that make regular use of the Aloha Stadium, but none as important or longstanding as University of Hawaii football. So the fact that there seems to be a disconnect between UH and the agencies involved in charting the stadium’s future presents a serious problem that needs prompt resolution.
The deteriorating stadium is expected to be demolished at the start of a planned redevelopment of its Halawa site, with a smaller replacement stadium as part of a complex to include residential units and commercial properties.
This meant a scramble for UH to find a new venue for the three years the project is expected to be under construction. On Monday that scramble ultimately yielded a decision to play UH’s home games on the Manoa campus, in the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex.
But UH officials are still unhappy, with good reason, that they do not have what they consider to be an adequate voice in the key decisions being made.
UH President David Lassner is a nonvoting member of the Stadium Authority, one of the agencies in the thick of the planning for the new stadium. However, said UH spokesman Dan Meisenzahl, the ex-officio members do not have access to executive sessions, so they are not in the loop about everything.
There are other complications with realizing the 35,000-seat stadium, which will occupy a 98-acre location. What’s envisioned includes affordable housing, entertainment, restaurants and other retail establishments surrounding the new stadium. All of this would be served by Honolulu’s elevated rail system, which is struggling with budgetary and timeline problems of its own.
The hope was that putting the state’s Hawaii Community Development Authority (HCDA) in charge of the project would be an advantage, as that quasi-independent agency has experience putting together the private partners needed to complete such a large enterprise.
HCDA did not want to be overburdened with oversight and management of the project, and the state Department of Accounting and General Services, which is picking up some of that duty, was running out of money for some of the contracting for designs and other startup duties.
A workaround has been found for the cash-flow problem, but the snafus at this early stage don’t bode very well for the timeline. State officials had wanted to have the new stadium ready for the September 2023 football season opener.
It seems more than likely that UH might be making do with smaller facilities for longer than that; at this point, a year’s delay is anticipated.
All of this is a concern for the Manoa leaders who will be grappling with pandemic-related budgetary challenges in the near term. They would like to plan for a more sustainable arrangement as a primary tenant of the stadium: no rental or facilities costs and a healthier cut of stadium revenues.
The Stadium Authority on Dec. 17 announced a moratorium on new events for the year and reduced operations due to safety concerns and a budgetary shortfall.
Curt Otaguro, state comptroller, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in a written statement that consultation is “too early, since we are only in the preliminary planning stages.” After a developer is selected, he added, the state “will engage with all stadium tenants more intensely to ensure that the new stadium addresses their specific needs.”
But UH deserves a place at the table when preliminary plans are being made. Taxpayers have invested millions in this project already and have an interest in seeing the public university gain some support in a new deal. It is not too early to open those lines of communication, which clearly have been failing the stadium’s key player.
