AIEA, Hawaii — Within the deteriorating husk of Aloha Stadium there remains an undergirding of belief that the state has a blueprint for the long-awaited construction of a successor venue.
The next three months will be crucial to its realization – or relegation to the drawing board.
Optimism from the Stadium Authority and fellow New Aloha Stadium Entertainment District stakeholders was publicly unshaken by last week’s news that the number of bidding groups vying to build and operate a new stadium and surrounding amenities in Halawa was halved from two to one.
Authority board members and stadium manager Ryan Andrews pointed out during Thursday’s monthly meeting at the shuttered site that the Request For Proposals process already called for bidders to be whittled down to a single “preferred offeror” by September.
That remains the timeline and that offeror will be Aloha Halawa District Partners (AHDP) by default – but only if the consortium, a mix of local and remote companies, agrees to a framework of criteria laid out in the RFP. AHDP has until July 31 to submit a detailed proposal for the 98-acre site.
In the days since Friday’s NASED press release that announced Waiola Development Partners had dropped out, Stadium Authority Chair Brennon Morioka took to sports talk radio to combat the notion that the state faces a disadvantageous position in negotiations with the last bidder.
He is confident in the process. He also told Spectrum News that if the NASED committee and AHDP cannot come to an agreement on major terms between July and September, the state can and will walk.
“If we move forward on this kind of investment, $400 million in (state money), we have to get something of significant value to the state and the community,” Morioka said. “That’s our job as board members, as people trying to be stewards of taxpayer money. This is the most important thing that we’re tasked with, right now.”
Backing away would mean restarting the RFP procurement process – again – for a project that was originally envisioned to be completed in 2023. For its latest timeline, the state has maintained that the new stadium will be ready in 2028.
After the final meeting of his eight-year Stadium Authority term, board member John Fink said he felt things are aligned like few other moments for NASED. But, he acknowledged, another procurement restart could mean a pushback to 2029 or 2030 and muddle matters with UH and other prospective tenants.
“There have been stumbling blocks along the way, but I do feel now that we have everybody who needs to be on the same page, on the same page, and … this thing should move forward and we can watch UH play Kansas in August of 2028,” Fink said.
After one year on the job as UH athletic director and witnessing the constraints of the makeshift home of Rainbow Warrior football, Craig Angelos wants UH out of the 15,000-seat Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex as soon as possible after the 2027 season.
Angelos, who was on the mainland Thursday, said he has been appraised of the latest regarding the RFP process.
“I’m still really hopeful that we can get that stadium out there on time,” Angelos said in a phone interview. “We can get to a new field and be competitive with our peers. It helps with recruiting, game environment, all sorts of those things.” An off-site stadium would also allow for plans to transform the Ching Complex in to a multi-sport athlete performance center and designated practice football field.
The RFP stadium criteria includes a minimum of 25,000 seats with future expansion capability, 4,500 units of housing and 430,000 square feet of retail space. AHDP would be responsible for costs beyond the state’s capped contribution for tearing down of the old stadium and construction of the new one. It would also shoulder costs of the surrounding infrastructure with the carrot that it would benefit in the long term of a 99-year land lease agreement.
If NASED selects AHDP as its master developer in September, it will attempt to work with the group on specifics of project planning over the next nine months and look to execute a contract in June 2025. The Stadium Authority said Thursday that timetable remains firm even with only one bidder left.
Morioka told Spectrum News the NASED team had received some hints before last week that Waiola District Partners was preparing to pull out of the process. In a withdrawal letter to NASED, the team cited a belief that it could not deliver a quality project up to its standards, Morioka said.
“While we’re disappointed with WDP’s withdrawal, it would’ve been nice to have two (bidders), but we do look at this as an opportunity to move the project forward quicker, and … get into much more meaningful conversations with (AHDP) about the entirety of their proposal,” the chair said during the meeting. “Not just the concepts but the financial aspects as well.”
He said NASED will save about $500,000 that it would’ve paid out to a losing bidder, and possibly a little more with a head start on negotiations with AHDP.
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.
In addition to Fink, it was the last stadium meeting for outgoing board member Kau‘i Burgess. Both were hailed by their peers as instrumental to get the NASED initiative to this stage.
On a few occasions during Thursday’s meeting, members of the public listening in virtually were given an opportunity to provide testimony regarding NASED. None stepped forward.
Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.