Two new stores have opened at Aloha Tower Marketplace.

The Battleship Missouri Store opened its doors Sept. 16, offering an array of USS Missouri and Pearl Harbor-related merchandise and memorabilia. The store will help fill a void created when the gift shop aboard the Missouri was closed as part of main preservation work that will be done on the historic battleship through the rest of the year. The new store also will feature a "mini-museum" with selected interpretive displays from the ship.

On Sept. 1, Holokai Gifts opened, offering a variety of Hawai'i-themed gift and souvenir items, priced from under $1 to $200.

COALITION JOINS FIGHT OVER HRPT LEASES

A coalition representing businesses leasing industrial land on O'ahu from HRPT Properties Trust is seeking to intervene in a lawsuit HRPT filed in federal court last month against the state over a recently enacted law affecting HRPT leases.

The group, Citizens for Fair Valuation, yesterday filed a motion to join the state in defending the suit that challenges the law's constitutionality.

The law affects some of the more than 180 businesses that lease land from Massachusetts-based HRPT in Mapunapuna and Kalihi Kai.

HRPT says the law interferes with its rental contracts in violation of the U.S. Constitution, and if enforced, would allow tenants to pay less rent than they do now.

SPRINT IMPROVES COVERAGE ON BIG ISLAND

Sprint Hawaii has installed a new cell site on the Big Island, giving wireless customers greater cell coverage along Saddle Road, connecting the east and west sides of the island.

The new cell site is part of Sprint's continuing local network improvements. Sprint last year invested $11.5 million in the Hawaii for Sprint Nationwide Network and Nextel National Network.

Recent upgrades boosted cellular coverage in Kilauea, Princeville, Lihu'e, Po'ipu and Grove Farm on Kaua'i; Kapalua and Hosmer Grove on Maui; Pa'aloa and Kona on the Big Island; and Turtle Bay and Kapalama on O'ahu.