Posted on: Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Wahiawa museum seeking to expand

Associated Press

The National Korean War Museum has run out of space just three months after settling into its Wahiawa home, and is looking for space to open a Mainland gallery.

The 10,000-square-foot Quonset hut that's home to the museum is too small for planes and tanks and a wall featuring the names of more than 33,000 fallen U.S. soldiers lost in the war, backers say.

The cost of expansion makes securing space on a former military base somewhere on the Mainland a more viable option, according to Kyle Kopitke, president of the museum's board of trustees.

"Right now, we're turning away exhibits that we don't have space for," said Kopitke.

The decision to open a national museum in Hawai'i was itself curious, and the location, in a residential neighborhood, is far removed from Honolulu's bustling tourist center.

Kopitke himself gives many reasons for an addition, including the fact that for much of its intended audience — veterans of the Korean conflict — may not be able to make the long trip.

It's not clear why the museum's leadership is addressing such issues now, after the museum has opened. Kopitke said the space issue was recognized as a problem long ago, but he had hoped to secure neighboring parcels.

"We thought we had an excellent chance of locating property on either side," Kopitke said. "But the price has just gone through the roof. We can't expand here."

Kopitke said he is looking at 70 military bases that have closed — including those at Plattsburgh, N.Y., and Blytheville, Ark. — and hopes to secure a 15,000-square-foot space. He said it would act as a "sister" to the original museum and not replace it.

"We have a beautiful museum, and we continue to grow each day," he said. "We have so much invested here in a sense."

Kopitke says just a few hundred people have passed through the museum since it opened Feb. 20.