Aloha Stadium - History

History

Located west of downtown Honolulu and two miles north of Honolulu International Airport, Aloha Stadium was built in 1975 at a cost of $37 million. It was built as a replacement for the aging Honolulu Stadium on King Street, demolished in 1976.

The first sporting event ever held at Aloha Stadium was a football game played between the University of Hawaii and Texas A&I (now Texas A&M-Kingsville) on September 13, 1975. The crowd was 32,247.

Aloha Stadium could be reconfigured into various configurations for different sport venues and other purposes, and was the first stadium in the United States with this capability. Four movable sections, each 3.5 million pounds and with a capacity of 7,000, could move using air casters into a diamond configuration for baseball (also used for soccer), an oval for football, or a triangle for concerts. A 2005 study by Honolulu engineering firm Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. determined that the stadium required $99 million to be completely restored and an additional $115 million for ongoing maintenance and refurbishment over the next 20 years to extend its useful life. In January 2007, the stadium was permanently locked into its football configuration, because of cost and maintenance issues. An engineer from Rolair Systems, the NASA spin-off company that engineered the system, claims that the problem was caused by a concrete contractor that ignored specifications for the concrete pads under the stadium.

There have been numerous discussions with State of Hawaii lawmakers who are concerned with the physical condition of the stadium. There are several issues regarding rusting of the facility, several hundred seats that need to be replaced, and restroom facilities that need to be expanded to accommodate more patrons.

In early 2007, the state legislature proposed to spend $300 million to build a new facility as opposed to spending approximately $216 million to extend the life of Aloha Stadium for another 20–30 years. The new stadium would also be used to lure a potential Super Bowl to Hawaii in the near future, possibly for 2016.

One council member has said that if immediate repairs are not made within the next seven years, then the stadium will probably have to be demolished due to safety concerns. In May 2007, the state alloted $12.4 million to be used towards removing corrosion and rust from the structure.