Kamehameha Schools officials have taken another step toward demolishing the shuttered Keauhou Beach Hotel.
Officials said in a written statement Tuesday their draft environmental assessment for the project will be published in Friday’s edition of the Office of Environmental Quality Control’s twice-monthly Environmental Notice. They did not make a copy of the assessment available as of press time Tuesday.
Demolition is expected to take place in fall 2015, officials said in a press release. The Hawaii County Planning Department approved the plan, school officials said. A message left with a planning official was not immediately returned.
The hotel closed in October 2012 after more than four decades in operation.
Once the demolition is complete, Kamehameha Schools will move ahead with a plan to create an educational complex on the former hotel site, an area known as Kahaluu Makai.
“This will be an educational piko for West Hawaii, a Hawaiian place in which opportunities for applied learning, teaching and knowledge creation are rooted in tradition while aspiring to 21st century innovation,” said Kaeo Duarte, Kamehameha Schools’ director of strategic initiatives in West Hawaii. “The potential for learning opportunities extends across a broad range of learners from this community, across the island and beyond.”
Contractors will be instructed to take care during the demolition process to protect the nearshore waters over which the hotel sits, officials said, as well as the numerous cultural and historical sites that surround the hotel. To the south are Hapaialii, a temple built as a large solar calendar, then Keeku, where human sacrifices were made, then Makolea, a temple for women. To the north are several unrestored sites, including more heiau; a pond; and, beneath the hotel itself, a Kamehameha I home site.
Community members will have 30 days to comment about the draft environmental assessment.
“We’ve been in discussions with various community stakeholder groups including kupuna, lineal descendants of the area, educational entities, Native Hawaiian organizations and government agencies for the past three years,” Duarte said. “Manao from stakeholders helped us develop a preliminary conceptual site plan to serve as a guide for transforming Kahaluu Makai into a landscape for traditional learning, and doing so in a way that honors the aina and kai.”
Email Erin Miller at emiller@westhawaiitoday.com.
