With unease growing about the financing for the redevelopment of Aloha Stadium, lawmakers are calling for greater financial accountability for the project’s multimillion-dollar consulting contracts.

Even so, a joint committee of senators on Thursday killed a backup plan that would’ve redirected state funding for a rebuilt Aloha Stadium — which has ballooned to an estimated $650 million — to a stadium at University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa.

Instead, the senators advanced a measure that would give stadium officials access to a special fund with $50 million in cash that they haven’t been able to tap into yet. That’s on top of the $350 million lawmakers already allocated to the stadium project in 2019.

The $50 million fund was to be used to pay consultants who have been working for the past six years to plan for the new stadium. But as they opened up the fund, the Senate committees directed the state to closely monitor those consulting contracts going forward.

Senators were concerned about a contract with Missouri-based Crawford Architects that has already cost about $35 million.

The panel pointed to a 2023 Civil Beat article that uncovered more than $400,000 in expenses that were not supposed to be reimbursed under the consulting contract, including first-class airfare and Waikīkī hotel rooms.

“Was nobody awake at the wheel when this was going on?” Sen. Donna Kim asked state comptroller Keith Regan during the hearing.

Regan said he was four months into the job when the expenses came to light. “I immediately took measures and steps to address this concern,” he said.

Regan initiated an audit and implemented new procedures and tighter internal financial controls to prevent a situation like that from happening again.

Besides consulting expenses, the lawmakers were still concerned with the overall cost of the project.

Brennan Morioka, chairman of the Stadium Authority, stressed to lawmakers that the $350 million appropriation would be enough to get the project on its feet.  But he also said Thursday that the project will likely need another $100 million.

He said the developers are looking into additional financing options. The stadium’s developer, Stanford Carr, has previously said that he’d like to see a special tax assessment on the entertainment district surrounding the stadium, as well as a potential cut of future state and city property tax revenues to help finance construction. The governor has floated the idea of private funding.

But in recent weeks, none of those ideas have materialized.

“We are very concerned that minus any additional state funding, can we make it happen?” Sen. Troy Hashimoto said in a hearing.

Stadium officials are running up against a self-imposed June 30 deadline to finalize a deal. A contract would need to be negotiated by then if officials want to complete construction by 2028, in time for that year’s home opener for UH football.

Morioka said that deadline could be extended a month or two, but if a contract cannot be reached that $350 million allocation would lapse.

“To be honest it’s been a little slower than we thought the negotiations would go,”  Morioka told lawmakers.  “But in recent weeks it has picked up and we’re seeing progress towards final execution of a contract this summer.” 

Senate Nixes UH Stadium Idea

The fallback plan that senators axed would have reallocated the state’s $350 million to make Clarence T.C. Ching Field a permanent fixture at UH Mānoa.

Sen. Lynn DeCoite, chair of the Senate Economic Development and Tourism Committee, said she was removing the provisions about UH due to overwhelming opposition to the bill.

“It is clear the sentiment is not to move the stadium to UH Mānoa,” she said.

Due to the sudden closure of Aloha Stadium in December 2020, the UH football team was forced to relocate to campus and play its home games at T.C. Ching Complex. The team was at risk of losing its eligibility to compete in the NCAA’s Division I because of a requirement that facilities have seating available for at least 15,000 people.

Recent renovations expanded the seating capacity to meet the requirement of 15,000, but those were short-term solutions. Ching Field is five years into its 10-year life expectancy and is expected to last until Aloha Stadium’s estimated completion in 2028. 

The current Ching Field “was never constructed to be permanent,” UH budget chief Kalbert Young said. “It is a temporary configuration, with less-than-semi-permanent design.”

Ching Field has an official capacity of 16,909, which is far below Aloha Stadium’s max capacity of 50,000 and a fraction of a typical NCAA Division I stadium. Due to the design of the complex and other facilities around it, like a parking structure and the Les Murakami Stadium, it would have been challenging to expand much further.

“Maybe a 20,000 (seat) stadium could be squeezed very tightly into the current T.C. Ching footprint without impacting other facilities,” Morioka said.

Morioka, who is also the dean of UH Mānoa’s engineering college, estimated that the lower campus would have required more than $100 million in infrastructure upgrades, including a new sewer system, water, and electrical upgrades, draining money for a stadium rebuild itself.