AIEA, Hawaii — The bids — however many they may be — are in.

The New Aloha Stadium Entertainment District team has received entries from teams vying to become the sole developer of the 98-acre Halawa site, including a new 25,000-seat stadium over the coming decades, the Aloha Stadium Authority said at its monthly board meeting on Thursday.

The quantity of those bids and the identity of the bidders are guarded secrets, however.

What You Need To Know

  • The State of Hawaii's New Aloha Stadium Entertainment District organizers received an unspecified number of bids from teams interested in becoming the master developer of the 98-acre Halawa site over the coming decades, including the design, construction and operation of a 25,000-seat stadium

  • Bids were due Feb. 14 and a short list of candidates is expected to be reached by early April

  • Aloha Stadium Authority members said at Thursday's monthly meeting the project remains on schedule with a new stadium to open by the 2028 Hawaii football season, and that they were pleased by the entries from bidders

  • A bill that would've allowed NASED to generate some revenue through signage on its new buildings was killed, State Sen. Glenn Wakai said with apologies to the stadium board

“As we are in the midst of the procurement process, no we're not disclosing the number of teams that submitted their qualifications,” said Chris Kinimaka, Public Works Administrator for the Hawaii Dept. of Accounting and General Services, in an email to Spectrum News. “We are happy to say we are encouraged by the submittals received, and our team is working hard to identify the priority listed proposers by late March or early April this year.”

Stadium board members affirmed the project is still on the timeline laid out at the press briefing on the project’s Request For Proposals held in Gov. Josh Green’s chambers at the Capitol in December.

Stadium Manager Ryan Andrews said he was “pleased” by what was sent in by the Feb. 14 deadline.

Once the teams are whittled down to a select few — three were short-listed in the project’s first go-around before Green pushed the project reset button in summer 2023 — the schedule calls for those groups to make their final submissions in the summer, with a master developer to be selected by the NASED team in the fall. That entity will foot the cost of a new stadium beyond the $400 million the state has committed and be in charge of construction of 4,500 units of housing and other amenities.

Officials hope to execute the NASED contract in the summer of 2025, at which point the husk of condemned Aloha Stadium would finally be torn down. They have said the new stadium will be ready in time for the 2028 University of Hawaii football season.

Meanwhile, State Sen. Glenn Wakai, who represents the Halawa district, apologized to the stadium board that a bill, SB 3197, designed to generate signage revenue for NASED through an exception to the state’s billboards law, was effectively killed. Wakai said he’d try again in the future without the billboard wording.

Board member Michael Yadao told Wakai that he appreciated his candor and effort to get it passed.

Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.