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'Symbol of the future' Research, technology park dedicates building
Full Article from The Maui News below:
By HARRY EAGAR, Staff Writer
Maui News
July 7, 2006
Photo by: MATTHEW THAYER
Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye is greeted by Kimokea Kapahulehua following Thursday afternoon’s blessing ceremony at the Maui Research & Technology Park, as Helen Nielson looks on.
KIHEI – The first new building at the Maui Research & Technology Park in more than a decade was dedicated Thursday with conches blowing and a reminder of just how the isle economy is changing.
When first proposed by the Maui Economic Development Board in 2002, the 32,000-square-foot structure was expected to cost $4 million. Construction and construction costs all over the island took off about that time, and the completed cost is about $10 million.
MEDB President Jeanne Skog thanked government agencies for helping to cover the gap.
"That’s not a gap, it was more like a chasm," said County Council Chairman Riki Hokama.
Nevertheless, the council continued to help fund the construction to the tune of $250,000.
The building is named – with advice from cultural specialist Hokulani Holt-Padilla – Ke Alahele, meaning the pathway.
Hokama said he prefers to think of it as na alahele – the pathways – "because it is one of the pathways of continuing to provide our young people with a choice of goals."
The promotion of high-technology jobs is one way to maintain "the quality of life we still have a chance to keep," said Hokama.
Sen. Daniel Inouye, who has used his position on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee to back high-tech and particularly the R&T Park on Maui, said that when he got involved in 1991 there might have been 120 people on Maui who could have described their jobs or businesses as high-tech.
Today, the count is about 1,400, and the jobs pay well – an average of about $70,000.
Inouye nodded to Masaru "Pundy" Yokouchi, one of the partners in the Maui R&T Partners that developed the park. He recalled that Yokouchi invited him to a gathering at the Maui Prince in 1991.
"It wasn’t a juice and cookies kind of thing," said Inouye. No, the pupu came in a double-decker Japanese lacquered box.
Inouye said he looked at the fancy food and asked, "How much do you want?"
Initially, $19.5 million and subsequently much more to establish the Maui High Performance Computing Center; hundreds of millions for the Air Force Maui Space Surveillance Center, which uses the computer; and a smaller figure but still multiple millions to support the park, which helps support the rest.
The park got off to a quick start with the publicly funded Maui R&T Center and privately developed Premiere Place.
Premiere Place tenants were established businesses, such as those with contracts from the Air Force, while the R&T Center housed support services and was an incubator for fledgling businesses.
For the first few years, competition for space was only mild. Lately, however, it has taken off.
Trex Enterprises moved all the way to its own building in Kahului, and other tenants were crying for more room.
Ke Alahele increases the park’s office space by 30 percent, and it is full already.
MEDB moved its offices there, and Akimeka, Pacific Disaster Center, SAIC and Virtual Radiographic Corp. did, too.
MEDB Vice President Leslie Wilkins says other tenants of the R&T Center were happy to take the newly emptied space.
About 200 people gathered under tents for the Hawaiian blessing and speeches by Inouye, Hokama and Mayor Alan Arakawa.
Arakawa called the building "a symbol of the future for which we owe Senator Inouye a tremendous debt of gratitude. . . . Maui needs a clean industry, and technology is it."
Other welcoming remarks came from Steve Holaday, chairman of MEDB, and Gail Fujita of the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration, which provided a grant of $2 million at the start.
Ke Alahele also is the first project on Maui to show off the new county lighting ordinance, with low-pressure sodium street lighting.
Mike Maberry of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy said he hopes people will come see how the new lighting works.
The low-pressure sodium lights are good for astronomy, but also for migrating seabirds and even, Maberry says, for tourism.
"So many people have never seen the Milky Way until they come here," says Maberry. Astronomers worry that normal street lighting eventually will swamp the light of the stars, as it has in big cities.
The County Council Public Works Committee will make a site visit to inspect the lighting at 7 p.m. Monday.
For direct link to Maui News article, click here.
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