Travelers passing through Honolulu Airport can expect to see construction start later this year on a $750 million effort to erect new terminals, larger gates, a new rental car building and other improvements at Hawaii’s busiest — but aging — commercial airport.
Workers are expected to break ground on the project in June and finish in 2017.
Construction at the airport during the first year "shouldn’t at all have an impact" on commuters and travelers, state Department of Transportation spokeswoman Caroline Sluyter said Wednesday. The work will be done in phases so that operations can continue as smoothly as possible, she said.
"They’re trying to do it to have the least possible impact on the traveling public," Sluyter added.
State transportation officials outlined the $750 million effort to modernize Honolulu Airport at a briefing Wednesday before the state Senate Committee on Transportation and International Affairs. The meeting also covered the DOT’s major air, harbor and road projects planned around the state.
The Honolulu Airport upgrade, state transportation officials said, falls under Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s "New Day" slate of improvement projects — a theme from his 2010 gubernatorial campaign. It will be paid for with a mix of fees collected from airport tenants such as Duty Free and airlines, federal airport improvement grants and a special state airport revenue bond, they added.
"If you take a look at our current commuter terminal, it’s old — it’s very old. We need to go ahead and upgrade that," Ford Fuchigami, deputy director of the DOT’s Airports Division, said after Wednesday’s Senate briefing. "If you compare our airport to other airports we want to be in the same capacity with them, so I think it’s really important for us to keep up."
None of the improvements will be paid for with the state’s general fund, Fuchigami added. The upgrades also will include a new $85.4 million maintenance and cargo facility for Hawaiian Airlines, a $215 million concourse with gates for six wide-body or 11 narrow planes and $60 million in wider taxi lanes for those planes to maneuver.
The project’s largest element, Fuchigami said, will be a new $250 million consolidated car rental facility to house all of the rental car companies serving customers at the airport.
"What we want to do is bring everybody into one area, similar to what Las Vegas has," he said Wednesday.
The project also will eventually include a new traffic light for drivers entering the airport from H-1 freeway, Sluyter said.
