Sign's up but, oops, not too helpful
By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Bureau
HAWAI'I KAI — What sounds like a simple project — erecting a community identification sign — has been beset with challenges from its conception. First, it took more than three years for this vision project to get started. Then the contractor used the wrong-colored rocks and had to replace them with lava rocks. Now the sign is finally up — but it's facing the wrong way.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
The sign — emblazoned with the words "Hawai'i Kai" and intended to replace one taken down in the mid-1990s during the widening of Kalaniana'ole Highway — faces the ocean instead of commuters, as intended.
A long-awaited sign, intended to tell visitors they are in Hawai'i Kai, fails to fulfill its purpose because it is misaligned and does not face arriving traffic on Kalaniana'ole Highway. Alternatives are to start over or to modify what's there.
A representative of the architectural firm Wimberly Allison Tong and Goo acknowledged at last week's Hawai'i Kai Neighborhood Board meeting that the company was to blame for the misalignment of the gateway sign at Kalaniana'ole Highway and Hawai'i Kai Drive.
Don Goo, chairman of the firm, which has been in business for 57 years and has worked in 120 countries on six continents, said the company will pay to reorient the sign so it can be seen by incoming and outgoing motorists and have it done by Aug. 1.
The original designs clearly showed that the sign was to face the highway, Goo said.
"The design firm was in charge of translating the community's wishes into an actual sign," Goo told residents. "My apologies for not having the sign the way you wanted it."
The community has been trying to get a new sign built since the Kalaniana'ole project was completed in 1995.
The city has spent $190,766, plus a $20,000 contingency fee, for three signs — two in 'Aina Haina and the one in Hawai'i Kai.
One of the 'Aina Haina signs, consisting of a sculptured artificial boulder with the community's name on it, sits at the corner of East Hind Drive. The other has not been installed.
All the signs were to be completed by June.
The Aug. 1 completion of changes to the Hawai'i Kai sign is crucial because Murray Luther, champion for the sign, has worked with a committee of four to make a community-wide event of the sign's completion.
He and his group have been lobbying shopping centers in the area to celebrate with events on Aug. 24, the day the sign is to be dedicated and a time capsule buried.
At the meeting Tuesday night, residents were torn between requiring architects to start over from scratch or just add a few more boulders to make the base a U-shape and swing the identification part of the sign around.
"We'll have to live with these changes for 50 years," said Bob Clark, a member of the Hawai'i Kai Neighborhood Board. "I think it should be done right."
But Luther was for the compromise, opting to have the sign completed in time for the Aug. 24 festivities.
"It was unfortunate that it ran into some problems," Luther said. "Certainly we don't want to tear the whole thing down and start again because we have an event planned with the shopping center. We just wanted an identification for our community here. The company here is trying to correct it."
Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com or 395-8831.
