Commercial, medical development is ‘for Hawaiians, by Hawaiians’ BY LESTER CHANG TGI Staff Writer Federal funds will be made available to help Native Hawaiians on Kaua’i create economic opportunities for themselves and to encourage them to achieve higher education. The
Commercial, medical development is ‘for Hawaiians, by Hawaiians’
BY LESTER
CHANG
TGI Staff Writer
Federal funds will be made available to help
Native Hawaiians on Kaua’i create economic opportunities for themselves and to
encourage them to achieve higher education.
The Anahola Homesteaders’
Council will receive $304,100 for Project Faith, a commercial development by
the 80-plus member group in Anahola.
“It is an economic development in the
Hawaiian community,” said council chairman Joe Prigge Jr. “It is being built by
Hawaiians, for Hawaiians in the Hawaiian community.”
Prigge is also a
candidate in next month’s general election for Kaua’i County Council.
In
addition, a portion of a $806,137 grant has been allotted to the Kaua’i
Community College learning center, which offers educational programs on six
islands and motivates Native Hawaiians to pursue higher education.
The
balance of the grant will go to three other learning centers operated across
the state by the University of Hawai’i.
The funds are part of $48 million
in federal grants that were awarded last month to organizations and groups in
Hawai’i.
Sen. Daniel Inouye ( D-Hawai’i) helped secure the grant funds
through the U.S. Department of Transportation and related agency appropriation
bills.
Prigge said the $300,000-plus for the homesteaders council will be
used to develop the $16 million Faith Project on a 17-acre lot on the
mountainside of Kuhio Highway in Anahola.
The development will include
32,500 square feet of retail space for professionals, a restaurant, a gas
station and a 40-bed, long-term care facility and a 20-unit, assisted—living
structure for the elderly.
The state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands
has committed the land for the project, according to Prigge.
The project is
the brainchild of the council and has been in the making for four years, he
said.
Assisting in the development of the plan were Wendell Brooks Jr.,
founder of Chaney Brooks and Co., the largest realty firm in Hawai’i, and
Wade Lord, an independent consultant.
The project went through a public
review for two years before the council moved the project along, Prigge
said.
“Most of the comments for the project were positive,” hee said.
The newly announced grant came from the U.S. Department of Health Services
and the Administration for Native Americans.
Last year, the homesteaders
council received $230,000 from the Administration for Native Americans, Prigge
said.
He said the balance of the project’s funding — $15.5 million —
is expected to be raised through loans and grants from private and government
sources, including a $3 million grant from the state Office of Hawaiian
Affairs.
Meanwhile, of $48 million in federal grants to Hawai’i announced
recently by Inouye, $6.9 million has been allotted to the city and county of
Honolulu to build a transit facility on a 21-acre parcel in Pearl City to
store, maintain and service buses.
The funds also will be used to buy 26
buses to replace aging vehicles.
Grants also were awarded to:
l
University of Hawai’i, ($118,682 for geographic information system technology
to evaluate Pacific Ocean zones and site, and to identify offshore aquaculture
business opportunities).
l Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management
Council ($100,000 to support congressionally-directed duties related to a
federal fishery conservation and management law).
Staff writer Lester
Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and lchang@pulitzer.net
