Schofield Barracks to get shopping center

By Will Hoover
Advertiser North Shore Writer

The military plans a new, $27 million shopping center to open in 2006 at O'ahu's Schofield Barracks, according to the Army Air Force Exchange Service in Texas, which operates retail stores at bases throughout the world.

The 177,000-square-foot center will replace the base's current retail center, which has been in place for decades. Plans call for the demolition of the existing facility and building the new center on the same 18-acre site, said Judd Anstey, AAFES public affairs specialist in Dallas.

The purpose is to modernize, expand and consolidate into one building all the retail activities of the current exchange, complete with a 700-stall parking lot, according to details filed with the state Office of Environmental Quality Control.

"Construction will start in September, and the projected completion date is July of 2006," Anstey said.

Peter Yuh Jr., National Environmental Policy Act coordinator for the U.S. Army Garrison in Hawai'i, said the public has until May 8 to comment on the plan, but an environmental assessment concludes that the impact of the new center will be negligible. "It's on an existing shopping center," Yuh said. "All they are doing basically is consolidating facilities and building a new building there."

The proposed facility will be roughly half the size of the Navy exchange at Pearl Harbor — the largest in the world — and more than 20,000 square feet larger than the state's biggest Wal-Mart, which is under construction on Ke'eaumoku Street.

Reach Will Hoover at 525-8038 or at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.