New police station plans set
By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Writer
Construction could begin early next year on East Ho-nolulu's police station at the National Guard site on the slopes of Diamond Head, city managing director Ben Lee said yesterday.
The site also will become home to the state's Homeland Security offices and the Hawai'i Army National Guard's Counterdrug and Drug Demand Reduction program, officials announced yesterday.
The site on the corner of Diamond Head Road and 22nd Avenue was selected in January following a decade's worth of debate over where the station should be built. Once the site was chosen, there was uncertainty over when the station could open because the rest of the National Guard contingent wasn't expected to move from its Diamond Head offices completely until 2009 for its new home in Kalaeloa.
But yesterday, the city detailed plans to build a 3,600-square-foot facility that will house about 300 personnel. Before construction even begins in the first quarter of 2005, trailers will be moved in for detectives and a field lieutenant to use, said Lee.
Hawai'i Army National Guard Gen. Robert Lee said the new police station will forge a partnership with federal and state resources that will strengthen homeland security and the war on drugs.
"I'm an old soldier," Lee said yesterday. "Technology is touted a lot, but I believe you get an effective partnership with pressing the flesh."
In addition, beginning next month police will use the Hawai'i Kai satellite city hall near Roy's restaurant on Keahole Street as an office to write up reports and to take statements. Ben Lee said at least one or two officers will be at the satellite office, seven days a week. The satellite city hall office will remain open with its Tuesday through Saturday hours.
"We've been working on this for a long time," Ben Lee said .
East Honolulu is the only police district on O'ahu without its own station. Currently, the district's operations are based at the main police station downtown, serving the district that spans from Manoa to Makapu'u.
The city had drawn up blueprints for a 15,000-square-foot building to house administration, field operations, booking/holding operations, investigators, special programs, locker rooms, physical fitness facilities and a meeting room at a previously selected site on Keahole Street in Hawai'i Kai.
The city spent $900,000 on blueprints for that station, but it didn't get built because construction proposals came in too high. The city was forced to revamp the plans and provide money for the project again in last year's budget.
The city will use part of that money to finance this scaled-down station on the slopes of Diamond Head, Ben Lee said, estimating the cost at about $1.5 million.
Mike Abe, chairman of the Kaimuki-Palolo Neighborhood Board, was happy to see the city moving forward with the police station. The station will be more centrally located than if it was in Hawai'i Kai, Abe said.
"It will address many issues that we're facing here, like holding off the increasing number of car thefts at Diamond Head lookouts and drug sales and we'll get better communication going between the agencies if they're all on one site."
Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com or 395-8831.
