City officials have broken ground on a $20 million, five-level parking lot for a planned city/state traffic management facility. However, the city still needs to secure more than $100 million in local and federal funds to complete the building the garage is meant to serve.

A groundbreaking ceremony for the 406-space, nonpublic garage was held July 13, and the building is scheduled to be completed in December 2011.

Hawaiian Dredging Construction Co. is building the garage at the property bordered by Alapai, King and Kealamakai streets and the Honolulu Police Department.

Construction on a traffic management center that will use the parking garage won’t begin until mid- or late 2012, said city transportation Director Wayne Yoshioka.

That part of the project will be paid for with $100 million to $110 million in Federal Highway Administration and city funds, which have not been awarded yet. Yoshioka would not say how much of the facility’s construction cost might be paid for with federal funds.

The city has budgeted $17 million for the project in fiscal 2011. The project is expected to cost about $146 million during the next six years, according to the city’s capital improvement plan.

The city is moving forward with the parking garage first because it would be unrealistic to budget the entire project costs in one year, Yoshioka said.

Once completed, the Joint Traffic Management Center will house city and state traffic control and first-responder operations. The goal is to more effectively manage major traffic incidents and emergency situations, said City Councilman Gary Okino, who’s also chairman of the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Committee.

"It will help, but it will still be a mess" if there’s a major traffic problem such as a freeway shutdown, Okino said. "There’s only so much you can do."

The assumption is the city will obtain all the local and federal funds needed to complete the project, Okino said.

If there is a gap between the completion of the parking lot and construction of the traffic management center, the parking structure could be used on an interim basis for city employee parking, Yoshioka said. The garage also could serve a transit center planned for the parcel, according to the city.