County officials have once again assured that work on Kalanianaole Avenue will be completed this year.
Steve Pause, Deputy Director of the Department of Public Works, told the County Council Committee on Public Works and Mass Transit on Tuesday that the current contractor on the long-delayed Kalanianaole rehabilitation project is on track to meet a scheduled completion date by the end of 2022.
“I’m an optimist by nature, but … in January I said we’d finish this year, and it sure does look like that is definitely real,” Pause said. “Our contractor has given us a schedule that shows them completing the work this year.”
Pause said the contract with Nan Inc. — which was awarded an $11.6 million contract for the project in March — includes a completion date of Dec. 15, although he said he believes it could be wrapped up before then assuming all goes well.
Much of the remaining work entails 26 concrete pours, Pause said, the first of which should take place next week, continuing with one pour a week — but he added that the pours could become more frequent as the work goes on. But Pause said Nan will try to conduct the concrete pours at nighttime out of convenience for local traffic.
Additionally, only one more water connection needs to be completed, which is scheduled to happen by June 8.
The project began — and was originally scheduled to be completed — in 2018, and was intended to widen about a mile of roadway from Kanoelehua Avenue to Kuhio Street, allowing for an additional sidewalk, a paved shoulder, bicycle lanes and a turn lane. However, since then, the primary access route to Keaukaha and King’s Landing has been reduced to a single lane of traffic across rough concrete, with little work being visibly done for months at a time.
The most recent batch of delays were to accommodate a Hawaiian Electric fuel line beneath the roadway. Although the fuel line had met code requirements when it was installed, Pause said Tuesday that it was close enough to the surface that the originally planned composition of the road could have compressed and damaged it.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
