The state announced Friday that one of the two finalist teams vying to become the master developer of the New Aloha Stadium Entertainment District has dropped out.

Waiola Development Partners’ sudden exit for unspecified reasons leaves only one other consortium, Aloha Halawa District Partners, in the running to construct a 25,000-seat stadium, plus outlying housing and retail amenities on the 98-acre Halawa site of the shuttered Aloha Stadium.

The Department of Accounting and General Services and the Stadium Authority sought to offer reassurance in a news release that the NASED Request For Proposals process will proceed and that 2028 remains the opening target for the new stadium.

“The RFP was designed to accommodate the possibility of having only one offeror, and this withdrawal will not affect the ongoing RFP process,” Stadium Authority Chair Brennon Morioka said in a statement. “We are on track to meet all of the RFP milestones, and we look forward to welcoming UH football and the community back to Aloha Stadium in 2028.”

The next key milestone under the RFP is the selection of a master developer in fall 2024. If successful, negotiations are to ensue between the state and developer with summer 2025 targeted for the execution of a contract.

The RFP calls for the state to supply $400 million toward the demolition of Aloha Stadium and construction of a new stadium, with the developer absorbing the rest of the cost of the venue. Around it, the rest of the 98 acres would be developed over decades – 4,500 units of housing and 430,000 square feet of retail space are called for by the RFP – with the winning bidder absorbing those costs as well. It theoretically stands to gain in the long term of a 99-year land lease agreement, the state has said.

All of that remains the case with Aloha Halawa District Partners (AHDP) as the sole candidate remaining, according to DAGS Comptroller Keith Regan.

“AHDP will still be required to submit a proposal in accordance with the RFP, and the state will evaluate that proposal according to the provisions of the RFP,” Regan stated. “The proposal will be required to meet prescribed standards and requirements and demonstrate value to the state.”

But not everyone was convinced on the latest announcement for a project that has lurched from one delay to the next since 2020.

Attorney Jeff Portnoy told Spectrum News in a phone interview Saturday morning, “It’ll take a good spin by the state for this to appear as if it is not a setback.”

Portnoy, a former member of the UH Board of Regents, said it leaves the state in a “very tenuous position” that could cause another delay.

“There’s not much of a ‘bidding war’ when there’s only one bidder,” he said. “It leaves the state with only two options: either it can take it or leave it, or they have to reopen the entire process again and hope to find competitive bidders.”

He offered an analogy. “If your windows are dirty and you call three different companies to clean your windows, and only one shows up and they tell you they want ‘X,’ and for some reason they find out nobody else showed up, that’s how they’re going to come up with X.”

Portnoy noted that an existing bid from Aloha Halawa District Partners could’ve been the one the state would’ve selected anyway, but “under no circumstances is this a good sign.”

Waiola Development Partners (WDP) and AHDP were announced as the two finalist teams for the restarted edition of NASED in late March.

AHDP is comprised of: Development Ventures Group, Inc., Stanford Carr Development, LLC, Ameresco, Inc. and Aloha Stadium Community Development, LLC (The Cordish Company) as the lead equity members; RMA Architects, Populous, SB Architects, Henning Larsen, Alakea Design Group and WCIT Architects as the design team; Hawaiian Dredging Construction Company, Inc. and AECOM Hunt as the construction team; and Castle & Cooke Hawaii and Wilson Okamoto Corp as other team members.

WDP was comprised of: EllisDon Capital, Inc., BSC Acquisitions II, LLC and Kobayashi Group LLC as the lead equity members; Design Partners Incorporated, MANICA Architecture, PA and Stantec Architecture, Inc. as the design team; Nan, Inc. as the construction team; and Machete Group, ES CON Sports & Entertainment, Biederman Redevelopment Ventures, SSFM International, Inc., Rider Levett Bucknall Ltd., SHADE Group LLC and PBR Hawaii & Associates, Inc. as other team members.

The Stadium Authority is scheduled to convene for its June meeting at 8 a.m. Thursday. Community members can testify via email or participate remotely via a video call.