Big Isle Water Supply moves to Waiakea site
By Hugh Clark
Advertiser Big Island Bureau
HILO, Hawai'i — The Big Island's Department of Water Supply has moved out of the Hawai'i County Building to the Waiakea Office Plaza, acquired by the water board in 1999.
A public blessing will be held at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Kekuanaoa Street site, best known as the former Brewer Office Building. The ceremony follows a Board of Water Supply meeting at 9 a.m.
The building also houses the state's Family Court offices and the Merrill Lynch financial services firm.
Milton Pavao, manager of the water department, said his agency will occupy about 11,000 square feet of the recently renovated site, about twice the size of the 5,600 square feet it had at the County Building. Forty-eight of the department's 138 employees will work at the new office.
The water board paid $3.6 million to purchase the site and $900,000 to make it legally accessible to the handicapped and to install new telephone and computer services.
Pavao said there are no plans to make any other immediate changes on the 4.6-acre site. The plaza once was the location of Hilo's defunct Canec factory that made household fiberboard from sugar cane bagasse.
The water department's $25 million budget comes from water charges to customers. Residential rates were raised this year by 42 percent to help pay for water source development, which previously was provided by the state government.
The County Building space being vacated by the water department is being considered for future use by the Department of Public Works' Building Division.
County Managing Director Dixie Kaetsu said the prosecuting attorney's office also wants to use part of the space for a trial preparation center for cases conducted in the State Office Building across the street. The prosecutor's main office is more than two miles away at a renovated Hilo Memorial Hospital site near Rainbow Falls.
The County Building, opened in 1967, is in great need of more room, she said. Among other agencies seeking greater space are the elections unit and the County Clerk's Office.
