The Kona Judiciary Complex has been put out for bid, and officials expect to award the $90 million project by the end of March.
The design for the complex on 10 acres near Kmart in Kona was completed last November, and groundbreaking is on schedule for the fall, said Dawn West, 3rd Circuit Court administrator. West spoke Tuesday during the “8th Alliance for a Sustainable Ahupuaa,” which featured updates about several projects in Kealakehe and Keahuolu.
“The big hurdle was completing the design and putting the project out for bid,” West said.
An agreement also was reached for preserving portions of the Kealakehe Regional Park for endangered species. Phase I of Village 4 at Laiopua is set for vertical construction, but a lack of water credits is hampering the development of a planned park to serve the homestead village.
Once completed in 2019, the 143,000-square-foot judiciary building at the junction of Makala Boulevard and Kamakaeha Avenue will feature at least five courtrooms, state-of-the-art security systems and detention areas, and 291 parking stalls. The center will consolidate four different courts now scattered between three buildings, including a cramped Keakealani Building in Kealakekua, where detainees must be led through crowded hallways on their way to court, compromising security. The building also is shared with the state Department of Health.
“We’re just lucky nothing has happened,” West said.
The new building will be constructed to LEED Silver standards for sustainability, and will include photovoltaic panels, West said.
In a separate project nearby, the infrastructure at Village 4 of Laiopua is completed. The first phase will contain 118 units, and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands hopes to have a contractor on board by year’s end to complete the project by 2019, said DHHL planner Andrew Choy.
A lot previously designated for a boat parking lot will be turned into a home site, and a portion of a 5-acre lot previously set aside for a park will serve for parking boats, Choy said. The change was prompted by an inability by DHHL to gain enough water credits to build the park, he said.
Out of 570 acres of DHHL land in the Laiopua 2020 project area, 100 acres will be set aside as critical habitat — part of a plan by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate a much larger swath of land to protect three endangered Hawaiian plants — the kookoolua, uhiuhi and wahine noho kula.
Additionally, DHHL will dedicate $80,000 a year for 40 years of habitat management, under an agreement worked out with Fish and Wildlife, Choy said.
A contractor cleared 2.5 acres of invasive species from the 26-acre Aupaka Preserve and planted kookoolua and uhiuhi trees, Choy said.
The Kealakehe Regional Park is set to enter the environmental assessment phase. The county agreed with Fish and Wildlife to set aside 30 acres for habitat. The park — to feature ball fields, trails, open spaces, bike paths and other features makai of Kealakehe High School — has been delayed by the critical habitat designation process.
“Our next step is to get an EA,” said Ken Van Bergen, deputy director for the county Department of Parks and Recreation, referring to an environmental assessment. “My commitment is that we will order the EA by the end of February.”
“The cream (of the island’s park projects) is eventually going to be Kealakehe Regional,” he added. “But not quite yet.”
The struggle to build the park dates back four decades. Various unfulfilled plans for the land included a sports complex and an 18-hole golf course. A park master plan completed in 2013 found it could cost $90 million to build out completely, with such features as a water play area, covered ball courts, amphitheater, driving range, skate park and dog park.
The community must still work to gain funding for the project, said Walter Kunitake, chairman of the West Hawaii Parks and Athletics Corporation, a major booster of the project.
“This is a really nice project,” he said. “And we need all of the interest groups to come together.”
Email Bret Yager at byager@westhawaiitoday.com.
