HONOLULU — Federal, state and city officials broke ground for a new joint traffic management center that was supposed to be completed in 2012.
HONOLULU — Federal, state and city officials broke ground for a new joint traffic management center that was supposed to be completed in 2012.
Hawaii News Now reports that the project, which the city began planning in 2005, is now predicted to be complete in 2017.
The building will house dispatch operations for police, fire, EMS and state and city transportation departments as well as rail transit. The federal government is providing $30.2 million of the $53.6 million for the three-story center.
While the city began planning for the project nearly a decade ago, different mayoral and gubernatorial administrations delayed the project for as many as five years.
Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell, who worked on the project planning in the early 2000s as a state lawmaker and then when he became city manager in 2009, said the center will solve a growing problem.
“This groundbreaking that we’re doing today is about addressing solutions to problems that have been growing worse and worse on a very small island,” he said.
Protests filed by a losing bidder for the construction work contributed several moths to the delay. Finalizing architectural drawings took even longer.
The city has given contractor Watts Constructor two years to finish the project. The architect is Architects Hawaii and R.M. Towill Corporation is handling construction management.
“We try to do things as quickly as possible but I think everybody knows that when it comes to government, it just takes a little longer than we all want it to, and that’s the case here,” said City Transportation Director Mike Formby. “But we’re happy to see it’s up and running now.”