LIHU’E – A four-lane Nuhou Road from Kukui Grove Center, planned to run eventually all the way to Nani Street in Puhi and to provide a badly needed alternative route to Kaumuali’i Highway’s congestion between Lihu’e and Puhi, is proving
LIHU’E – A four-lane Nuhou Road from Kukui Grove Center, planned to run eventually all the way to Nani Street in Puhi and to provide a badly needed alternative route to Kaumuali’i Highway’s congestion between Lihu’e and Puhi, is proving an expensive undertaking.
Grove Farm’s Mike Furukawa said the cost of the road is projected to be $5 million a mile, or around $1,100 per foot.
Still, the company now owned by Steve Case, founder of America Online, is committed to making the roughly one-mile road a reality.
Once the plan gets county approval, which could come any day now, Grove Farm will re-bid the project with the two contractors who submitted the lowest bids, Furukawa said at a recent Lihu’e Business Association meeting at Fenton Lee’s Hawaiian Classic Desserts restaurant here.
Following the bid process, the contract will be awarded, and work could begin by the end of April or early May.
The road will include bike lanes, sidewalks, curbs and gutters, handicap accessibility features, utilities and related infrastructure, and within five years will also emerge at Nawiliwili Road to create a new intersection with Pua Loke subdivision’s Aheahe Street, he said.
The company also is eager to move forward on construction of the final eight holes of its Puakea Golf Course, which is currently a 10-hole layout.
Having received approval from the Kaua’i Planning Commission for various permits necessary for golf-course completion and master-plan update, Grove Farm is now before the Kaua’i County Council for that body’s approval as well.
A council public hearing is set for Thursday, April 11.
The golf course’s 18-hole layout has been changed a bit, the more compact updated layout still being a par-72 format but being easier for maintenance crews to get to than the previous arrangement.
In the process, Furukawa said, some residential-zoned land will be sacrificed for golf-course purposes.
The former Grove Farm manager’s house, along Nawiliwili Road and originally tabbed to be the golf course clubhouse, will not be used for that purpose, but will be refurbished, he explained.
It will cost between $1.5 million and $2 million to fix up the historic home, which suffered significant damage during Hurricane ‘Iniki.
The current situation at Grove Farm is much rosier than it was in the 1990s, when the company’s master plan project for the area between Nawiliwili Road and Puhi was in danger of defaulting because of ‘Iniki and a slowing economy.
In order to meet affordable-housing requirements imposed by the county, the company sold property at Puhi to Schuler Homes for less than the land was worth, and was further required to build a sewage treatment plant, which it continues to own and operate.
Around $40 million in up-front improvements were installed by the company, and before Case came along the company had just completed renegotiated loan terms with lenders, Furukawa said.
Case was a “godsend,” as before he rode to the rescue the Grove Farm Puhi plans were put on the back burner due to insufficient funds to carry out the project, which includes the golf course, and residential and commercial development, Furukawa said.
Finally, Furukawa reported the completion of the first phase of Kukui Grove Center renovations, with bids opened earlier this month for contractors for the second phase.
As a drive around the center reveals views of the exterior walls of businesses and little else, the intent of the improvements is to make the center more visibly appealing, open and inviting, he said.
Center management has been talking to several new, prospective tenants, he concluded.
