Bishop Museum pulls out of Kaka'ako complex

By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer

Bishop Museum has dropped plans for a $35 million science and technology learning center in Kaka'ako, and instead will build a $24 million center and a $10 million IMAX theater on its own campus in Kalihi near the Likelike Highway and H-1 Freeway, new museum president William Brown said yesterday.

William Brown, new president of the Bishop Museum, said it would take too long to clean up a proposed site in Kaka'ako, causing the museum to risk losing a federal grant to build its $35 million science and technology learning center. Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser

Gov. Ben Cayetano, who had invited the museum to build a centerpiece attraction as part of his dream for redevelopment of Kaka'ako, said yesterday, "everybody is disappointed, because we all agreed that Kaka'ako would have been a great site, and we worked very hard to try to make that happen.

"It is unfortunate that this great project has to be canceled because certain deadlines could not be met," he said.

Cayetano said $5 million appropriated by the state for the science center project was tied to Kaka'ako, and that the museum would have to come back to the Legislature to see if the money could be shifted to another site.

Jan Yokota, executive director of the state agency that oversees development in Kaka'ako, also was disappointed at the news, but said she understood institutions must do what they consider best.

If Bishop Museum goes ahead with its own science learning center in Kalihi, there probably won't be any such center in Kaka'ako, said Yokota, who directs the Hawaii Community Development Authority. Other tenant uses will be sought; some have talked about a theater for the site, she said.

But one of the museum's major private backers, The Harold K. L. Castle Foundation, said yesterday it was pleased Bishop Museum was bringing the project back to its own campus.

"The Castle Foundation directors have always felt that developing the museum campus as a total entity would be more beneficial to the community than trying to split it up into two different kinds of things," said foundation vice president Kate Braden.

Brown said the new 48,000-square-foot science and learning center building would be erected at the diamondhead-makai corner of the museum's 17-acre site, screening the museum grounds from the freeway and enclosing the Great Lawn where Kamehameha once marshalled his warriors.

"I'll leave it to the architects to plan it, but I could almost see it as a wave coming up the hill, with some sort of a low wall that would block off the vision of the cars and create a sense of campus," said Brown, looking across the lawn from his office yesterday.

That's a change from some earlier plans that would have extended buildings farther into the lawn area itself. An earlier $40 million plan for an on-campus center also involved demolition and replacement of the planetarium, observatory and shop and restaurant buildings.

Brown said yesterday those buildings are sufficient for their purpose and could be brought up to date with renovations as part of the first phase.

The $10 million IMAX theater would be a second phase.

Brown wants work to begin soon. "I may be impatient, but I really want to have some earth turned by the end of this year, and I want to open the doors of the new place within a couple of years after that," he said.

Proposals are being sought from architects for design of the new science center building. Brown said the building should be low enough that the museum's original historic buildings are visible from the freeway, but high enough to screen the museum grounds from freeway traffic.

Brown said the museum hopes the state stands by its $5 million commitment, and noted that the museum already has another $3 million appropriated by the state for work at the Kalihi site.

The museum also has $3 million pledged by private donors for the project, including $1.5 million from the Castle Foundation, he said.

Even with the $5 million appropriation from the state and the $5 million Energy Department grant, the museum is still $8 million shy of the $24 million price tag for the first phase, for which Brown said it would launch a major fund-raising campaign in March.

The new president said yesterday he is asking the public for renewed support of the museum, which is running an unexpected deficit because of the postiSept. 11 downturn in tourism. He said he is working to get more residents to become members and make tax-deductible contributions.

Brown pointed out that the museum was not founded by Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, whose vast landholdings form the bulk of the Kamehameha Schools endowment, but by the princess' husband, Charles Reed Bishop, with a very small initial bequest.

A treasure house of Hawai'i's royal and natural history, Bishop Museum employs 245, with a budget of about $14 million a year. It attracts 500,000 visitors a year.

Brown, former science adviser to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and recently director of the Audubon Society's living oceans program, in August succeeded D. Donald Duckworth, who retired after 16 years at the museum.

Brown earned his Ph.D. at the University of Hawai'i after studying there in the early 1970s as a National Science Foundation Fellow.

Reach Walter Wright at wwright@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8054.