KAILUA-KONA — On the second-to-last day at Privateer’s Cove’s former location, a couple asked the restaurant’s owner, Nick Traxler, if he, the man behind a pirate restaurant, is also the right man to run a community center at the former Hualalai Theatre.
“No, I’m not. I’m not, not at all. I’m a pirate; I’m rough-and-tumble,” Traxler recalled last week at the old theater off Hualalai Road. “The difference is I can. I have an opportunity where I can be the person that opens it. And we have a lot of good people here that are the right people to be in a community center.”
“So no, am I the right person? No,” he added. “But why would we not take the opportunity?”
The opportunity to offer something for the community — with a children’s center, theater and veterans center all under one roof — is one that other residents are seeing, too.
On Feb. 10, many of them came out for a day of taking on renovation work to turn the old theater into a place for the community, its children and its veterans.
“For the community, having keiki space is huge,” said Joy Wu, who was among those helping on the work day.
“A teenage safe space for teens to hang out is huge. For families to come together … that’s huge. So I think it provides just a chance for people to connect.”
The community center, named the Pirates Outreach Community Center, will be wholly funded by proceeds from the Privateer’s Cove restaurant at the center.
“Privateer’s Cove fully funds the nonprofit,” Traxler said. “One hundred percent of our profit margin funds the community center.”
A grand opening for the community center, scheduled for March 17, is still a month away, but Traxler already has plenty of ideas for how he sees the center offering something for the community that comes through its doors.
“Every night, there should be something going on here,” he said. “We don’t have many places that are 12,000 square feet in this town, much less in the center of this town.”
Those events include free movies for the community on Fridays and Saturdays, and once he’s able to get the projector set up, he said, “The Bridge On the River Kwai” — his mother’s favorite film —will kick off the screenings.
The facility also features a children’s center — complete with board games, table games and video consoles — for the community’s kids.
In addition to being a fun place for kids, he also plans to make it a space for learning opportunities and after-school help.
Traxler said the third space is being renovated into an American Legion hall to include a 35-person conference room for that organization and other veterans groups.
In total, it adds up to 23 nonprofit groups that will operate in some way in the community center.
Susan Bickell, president of the Chamber Orchestra of Kona, which will be rehearsing and performing at the community center, said they were looking forward to a partnership with Traxler and the community center.
“We’ve been looking for a long time for a place we can call home,” she said.
“This way, we’ll always have a place to perform.”