Hawaii doesn’t have a professional sports team to support a planned new stadium on Oahu, but the consortium working to develop a mixed-use community around a future Aloha Stadium has big-league players.
About a dozen members of Aloha Halawa District Partners are close to starting the project and still remain barred from sharing many details because some contract agreements remain pending. Yet past work by two firms specializing in key elements of the envisioned community anchored by a new multipurpose stadium offer a sense of what might arise in Halawa.
Conceivable features include restaurants with outdoor bleacher seating overlooking a new stadium, and residential buildings with views of future concert performances, monster truck rallies and University of Hawaii football games.
A viewing deck with a swimming pool also has been contemplated for the stadium replacing Halawa’s 50-year-old “Rust Palace,” which was condemned five years ago.
Such features exist at projects produced in part by members of AHDP.
The consortium, which state officials selected in November to produce the New Aloha Stadium Entertainment District on the 98-acre stadium site owned by the state, is led by local housing developer Stanford Carr. Also on the team are a prolific stadium designer and a firm that has developed several mixed-use communities anchored by sports facilities.
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Stadium designer
The stadium architect, Populous, has designed some of the most iconic sports venues in the world, including nearly 20 professional arenas. They include the 2009 version of New York City’s Yankee Stadium, NRG Stadium for the Houston Texans football team, Wembley Stadium in London featuring England’s national soccer team, and the $4 billion Kai Tak Sports Park that opened earlier this year in Hong Kong.
Populous, based in Kansas City, Mo., also designed the Sphere, a globe-like entertainment venue in Las Vegas that opened in 2023.
Earlier this year, the firm was picked to design a 14,500-seat stadium that could be enlarged to 20,000 seats for a National Women’s Soccer League expansion team in Denver adjacent to an envisioned mixed-use development, as well as a multipurpose stadium and entertainment district on 50 acres in Oklahoma City.
“Sports and entertainment complexes are now being designed as vibrant community hubs that extend beyond hosting major events, incorporating retail and community zones, educational facilities and medical services, contributing to the creation of sustainable neighbourhoods and resilient urban communities,” the company says on its website.
Spectator capacity for a new Aloha Stadium is slated to be 22,500, including 10 luxury boxes, with future expansion potential.
Populous said one of its stadium designs that may most closely resemble a new Aloha Stadium is the 20,000-seat Audi Field in Washington, D.C. That facility is used by three professional soccer teams and a UFL football team, and is part of a developing mixed-use community called Buzzard Point.
Specialty developer
The other specialty partner working on NASED is The Cordish Cos., which has transformed several stadium areas in mainland cities into year-round destinations for living, working and entertainment.
Such projects by the Baltimore, Md.-based developer include a $250 million project called Texas Live! that opened in 2018 with dining, entertainment and hotel offerings between Globe Life Field, home of the the Texas Rangers baseball team, and AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys football team, in Arlington, Texas.
Cordish more recently added a 300-unit luxury rental apartment building to what is envisioned to become a $4 billion stadium district in Arlington developed in partnership with the Rangers and the City of Arlington.
Another Cordish project anchored by a stadium is Ballpark Village in St. Louis, developed in partnership with the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team.
Ballpark Village spans seven blocks next to Busch Stadium and features retail, entertainment venues, offices, a hotel and a 300-unit luxury apartment tower.
An initial $100 million phase included a restaurant and event space dubbed Cardinals Nation and an Anheuser-Busch sports bar that both feature stadium-style seating with direct views into the ballpark.
Cordish claims Ballpark Village was the country’s first fully integrated mixed-use development designed to deliver “game-day experience” energy and excitement outside stadium walls.
The initial phase of the 10-acre village opened in 2014 and was built around the $411 million ballpark, which opened in 2006. A $300 million second phase opened in 2020 and included the hotel, an office tower, apartment tower and more retail and restaurant space.
State Sen. Glenn Wakai, a longtime backer of the NASED plan that includes a $350 million appropriation by the Hawaii Legislature toward what is currently projected to be a $475 million new stadium, has visited two smaller Cordish entertainment district projects and described them as impressive and dynamic.
“It’s exciting,” said Wakai (D, Kalihi-Salt Lake-Pearl Harbor) of the atmosphere he saw during his two excursions. One was while dining out in the Fourth Street Live! district of Louisville, Ky., close to the KFC Yum! Center used for University of Louisville home basketball games. The other was after attending a Baltimore Orioles baseball game and visiting the nearby Power Plant Live! complex in downtown Baltimore.
“Both were invigorating the corridors of their two cities,” Wakai said.
Fourth Street Live!, which covers the equivalent of two city blocks and hosts 150 annual concerts and other events, draws over 4.5 million visitors annually to make it the most-visited attraction in Kentucky, according to Cordish.
Aloha Live!
For NASED, the team led by Carr might brand part of the project Aloha Live! while also reflecting Hawaii’s unique cultural history and Halawa’s heritage.
“Our approach with all projects across the globe is to bring people, community, culture and innovation together, which we recognize is of singular importance in Hawaii,” Riki Nishimura, a Populous principal, said in a statement.
Brennon Morioka, dean of UH Manoa’s College of Engineering, who became Gov. Josh Green’s special NASED adviser after chairing the Stadium Authority board overseeing the project, has no doubt that AHDP team members can produce a great product in Halawa.
Morioka visited the Populous-designed Canvas Stadium for Colorado State University during a work conference that used some spaces in the facility, and can imagine Cordish creating an entertainment district connected with something like that in Halawa.
“I was very impressed,” he said. “If this is what we’re going to get … people are going to be happy.”
Realizing the NASED vision has challenges, in part due to the stadium site not being part of a dense urban community. Instead, it’s largely isolated by highway and freeway arteries. On top of that, the biggest regular previous user of Aloha Stadium was high school football. The UH football team plays seven home games. By comparison, Major League Baseball teams play 81 home games a year.
Ways to make more regular use of the planned new stadium include attracting professional rugby and soccer teams, as well as concerts and other entertainment arranged by AHDP, which will operate and maintain the stadium for 30 years.
ASM Global, one of the world’s largest event venue operators and manager of the Hawai‘i Convention Center, is to run the stadium for AHDP.
Carr’s team intends to have other developers help build 4,500 homes on some of the 78 acres surrounding a new stadium on 20 acres. AHDP also will continue the popular existing swap meet and plans to integrate the city’s adjacent Skyline rail station with new development.
In total, Carr estimates the entire project may cost $5 billion to $6 billion and span 25 years.
Demolition of the existing stadium is slated to begin by the end of the month. A replacement is projected to be done by March 2029 along with initial pieces of the entertainment district.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.staradvertiser.com ’
