The ambitious project to create a network of pedestrian- and bike-friendly trails in downtown Hilo is set to begin over the summer.
“We’re just about ready to start construction on Phase 1,” Hilo Bayfront Trails president and project organizer Peter Kubota said Wednesday. “Things progress slowly, but we’ve moved this forward quite a lot.”
Work on Hilo Bayfront Trails became delayed after its groundbreaking last summer while the all-volunteer organizing group rearranged contracting plans.
More than a decade of planning and coordinating took place before the July groundbreaking. The trail network, when complete, is expected to link downtown Hilo with both Hilo Harbor and the University of Hawaii. It will be completed in three phases.
Phase 1 work was initially estimated to cost about $750,000: $345,743 in grant funding from the National Parks Service, $25,000 from the County of Hawaii and $379,023 in donations of labor and supplies.
“Originally, it was going to be volunteer efforts,” Kubota said. That plan was shelved as contractors became busier, and the county then put Phase 1 out to bid.
“Of course the bids came out way more than we thought it would be,” Kubota said. The final contract came in at just shy of $1 million. The Bayfront Trails group received additional funding from NPS — about $155,000 — for a total of almost $500,000, but the extra grant money was not enough to make up the difference.
“The county came in and said ‘We will build Phase 1 for you,” Kubota said. The Bayfront Trails group will be responsible for the second two phases.
Hawaii County Parks and Recreation could not be reached for comment by press time.
Phase 1 paves a multi-use pathway along Hilo Bayfront.
This will be done in three sections: Mooheau Park to Pauahi Street, Pauahi Street to the Bayfront canoe halau, and the Kumu Street soccer fields to Pauahi Street.
“The idea is when we build Phase 2 and Phase 3, then it connects up,” Kubota said. Phase 2 will focus on the Banyan Drive area. Phase 3, the most complicated portion because of the amount of agency coordination needed, will run along Kalanaianole Avenue.
The trails project also includes connecting with a network of paths to be built by the Department of Land and Natural Resources state parks divisions, which manages the Wailoa River State Recreation Area.
Work there is still in the preliminary phases. DLNR communications specialist Deborah Ward said in an e-mail that the project had not yet gone out to bid, so there was not yet a contractor or start date.
“It will be some time,” she said.
A fundraising effort by Friends of Hilo Bayfront Trails is also set to begin when the Phase 1 construction starts. Last year, philanthropist Ed Olson pledged a matching grant of $250,000 to the overall project.
“For every ten thousand we raise, we get another ten thousand,” Kubota said.
The trails network intersects with other improvement projects in Hilo, such as redevelopment efforts on Banyan Drive. “There’s good things happening in Hilo,” Kubota said. “I think it’s growing in the right ways”
For more information visit www.hawaiicountycdp.info/bayfront-trails, or email hilobayfronttrails@gmail.com.
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
