Permit delays slow Ko Olina aquarium
By Andrew Gomes
Advertiser Staff Writer
Unanticipated permitting hurdles have pushed back the expected start of construction for the Ko Olina Resort & Marina aquarium by at least eight months, according to resort master developer Jeff Stone.
Associated Press library photo
Stone said the world-class facility, which was made possible by $75 million in state tax credits authorized last June, could break ground as early as August, and open roughly 18 months later, in early 2006. Originally the aquarium was expected to open in 2005.
Plans to build a 75,000-square-foot aquarium at Ko Olina are still on track, though permitting hurdles have delayed the opening. A law passed last year gave the resort $75 million in tax cuts for the project.
On Friday, Stone said planning and permitting has cost $1 million to date, and has been a much more complicated process than he envisioned.
"I don't think anybody thought building an aquarium would be that complicated, or a science, but it is," he said. "This project is enormous (in scope) ... and we have to do it right."
Stone said the initial surprise was that the city Land Use Ordinance doesn't have a classification for aquariums, and that it took a few months to establish that an aquarium could be an acceptable use as a "related marina project," or marina accessory.
"This is like you deciding you are going to (develop) a rocket pad," Stone said. "The city would say, 'Well, we've never done a rocket pad. How do they work?' No one's ever asked them some of this stuff."
A call to the city Planning and Permitting Department seeking comment was not returned on Friday.
Stone said city officials have been gracious and helpful in working with aquarium engineering and design consultants on issues, which also included determining what kind of zoned land parts of the aquarium should be on.
The Ko Olina aquarium, according to preliminary designs, is described as a 75,000-square-foot aquarium next to snorkeling lagoons.
Visitors would be able to swim amid coral and tropical fish separated by clear walls from sharks, barracuda and other creatures in the aquarium. There also would be acrylic viewing tubes visitors could walk through.
The aquarium also would contain a commercial village and an open-ocean pen for the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory, also known as the Dolphin Institute.
Arranging the commercial components so they fit on land already zoned for business, as opposed to aquarium exhibits that can be on preservation land, required "massaging" design plans to match already zoned land at the resort, Stone said.
The most difficult permit is expected to be one for discharging salt water into the ocean, according to Stone. "We must prove it won't harm the environment," he said.
Stone added that planning has had to be coordinated among cultural consultants, scientists, hotel operators, home builders and companies committed to building time-shares and hotels at the resort.
Negotiations are ongoing with prospective operators of the aquarium, which will determine final design plans, which Stone said are about half complete. "Each person weighs in," he said.
The delay had some people speculating that the project had run into a fatal problem. Stone said the rumors he has heard recently about the project being doomed are untrue.
"We are full tilt on this project," he said. "It's a done deal."
Sen. Willie Espero, a founding member and director of the West O'ahu Economic Development Association, said if Ko Olina Co. can break ground anytime this year it still would be good considering the tax-credit legislation was signed last May. "We're moving in the right direction," he said.
Ko Olina Co., which has sold tens of millions of dollars of real estate to home developers over the past few years, and expects to sell more to hotel and time-share operators soon, will finance the aquarium itself without partners and without borrowing money, Stone said.
Aquarium operating consultants have suggested building the aquarium in two phases, adding to the initial phase after the aquarium is established, though details were not available on how the phasing would be divided.
Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8065.
