The long-sought public library for Waikoloa Village is a step closer to becoming a reality.
The state Office of Planning and Sustainable Development last week published a final Environmental Assessment for the project, with a finding of no significant impact, or FONSI.
The consultant who prepared the 817-page document is PBR Hawaii in Honolulu. It’s available at bit.ly/3wALUyn.
The project proposal includes a new, approximately 12,000-square-foot public library building with an approximately 3,000-square-foot Early Learning Center, a 71-stall surfaced parking lot, and complementary landscaping. The proposed library includes shelving for a minimum of 50,000 books, private meeting rooms, a program room, a work room, support space and a librarian’s office.
The Early Learning Center, connected to the library, will have two classrooms, each capable of accommodating about 20 students.
The project architect is Glenn Miura of CDS International in Honolulu.
The library would be built on 2.567 acres of county land on Kamakoa Drive in Waikoloa off the end of Paniolo Avenue. The use of county land was a trigger requiring environmental review of the project.
“It’s right next to the skate park and it’s in the area where they’ve been building residential affordable-housing developments,” said state Rep. David Tarnas, a Democrat who represents the district where the library is to be built. “It’s at the end of the currently built residential section of Waikoloa, but at the beginning of what looks like significant residential development that’s going up right now — a combination of Hawaii County affordable housing as well as market-rate housing projects that are going up. It’ll be accessible by bicycle, by walking, right in the neighborhood.”
Tarnas said he and Sen. Tim Richards, a fellow Democrat whose district the library would be in, were able to secure an additional $8 million in capital improvement project funds for construction of the library .
“That brings the total for our two-year appropriation for construction of the project to $21 million. So I’ve been assured by the state librarian, Stacey Aldrich, that that is sufficient for us to complete construction of the library as planned,” Tarnas said. “She told me that her hope is it should go out for bids for construction as soon as they get the permits. So they hope to do that … by the end of the calendar year. And then, they would start construction after they select the bid, order all the materials and do site work. So they could very much start construction a year after that, with the completion being 18 to 24 months after that. So we could very well see a new library by 2028 on the outside.”
Once the library is constructed, the existing Waikoloa bookmobile would be decommissioned and staged in a wind-protected outdoor learning area that would be used for large gatherings, as well as to host book sales by the Friends of the Library, which has promoted, raised funds for and maintained the bookmobile for the community.
“With the final EA completed, we’ll have to wait for the public comment period to finish. But with the funding assured, now the next steps are to finalize the design plans and submit them to the county for permit approval.”
The 30-day public comment period ends June 7. Comments may be submitted at planning.hawaii.gov/erp/comments/.
“I’m very delighted that we were successful in getting this funding,” Tarnas said. “The state librarian is very motivated to get this project done — and we are achieving a dream that the community has been working on for decades.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
