Question: Whatever happened to efforts to restore a large historic pond and islet of Hawaiian royalty in Lahaina?

Answer: The effort to bring back Mokuhinia Pond and Mokuula islet, where the Kamehameha royalty once resided, is moving forward, according to the nonprofit group Friends of Moku‘ula.

Some regard the project as significant as the restoration of Iolani Palace.

The group’s program manager, Shirley Kahai, said a community meeting is scheduled on Nov. 1 to receive information on the progress of a feasibility study being done by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The meeting starts at 6 p.m. at the Lahaina Senior Center.

Mokuhinia Pond, which once stretched for acres, is now covered by dirt. The site now includes the county’sMalu Ulu Olele Park, which has a basketball court, tennis courts, a baseball field and parking lot along Front Street, a corps preliminary study confirmed.

The study found the pond also once extended makai of Front Street.

The Bishop Museum conducted earlier studies confirming the location of Mokuula islet.

Hawaiian experts say the pond had been connected to a canal along Canal Street, which led to the ocean.

"It was also the waterway that took some of the alii to church," said Hokulani Holt-Padilla, a kumu hula and the group’s cultural consultant.

The pond was also home to the legendary mo‘o or lizard goddess Kihawahine, a former chiefess of Maui.

"It added to the sacredness of the place," she said.

King Kamehameha III, his mother, Keopuolani, and sister Nahienaena lived on Mokuula Islet in Lahaina, when it was the capital of the Hawaiian Islands, Holt-Padilla said. The capital was moved to Honolulu in the mid-1840s.

Kahai said the group, working with the mayor’s office, has received about $500,000 in funding to proceed with the first phase of development on an empty lot along Shaw Street.

The first phase includes developing a parking lot and an 1,800-square-foot Hawaiian hale that will be used as a center for Hawaiian learning and workshops.

The group received a $131,000 federal grant to develop a plan to acquire the land. The plan is to restore the area to the way it looked in the early 1800s, which means the park would have to go, a topic still under discussion.