An ambitious and controversial state plan to develop a more than $300 million campus for state, county and federal first-responder agencies in Mililani is on a path toward potentially starting construction later this year or in 2024.
A state agency spearheading the First Responder Technology Campus finalized an environmental impact statement for the project earlier this month, and many Hawaii lawmakers appear poised to appropriate $100 million to begin building an initial phase.
The project has been in a gestation phase for at least a decade, and is envisioned as a sprawling 243-acre operations and training base for up to 19 law enforcement, fire, defense and other emergency response agencies.
Elements of the planned campus include office space roughly equivalent to a 37-story tower, a 2,000-stall parking structure, classrooms, a 450-seat auditorium, warehouses, a cybersecurity data center, an indoor shooting range and outdoor training facilities possibly featuring structures to practice tactical raids and rescues, an obstacle course, a rappelling tower and a vehicle driving course.
There also would be 400 to 500 workforce housing apartments, a 150-bed hotel, a 100-bed dorm, retail space, a community center, a fitness center, a running track, a competition swimming pool and a cafeteria with a kitchen staff that includes a nutritionist.
About 150 acres would remain mostly undeveloped and accommodate Hawaii National Guard search-and-rescue training.
The roughly estimated cost of the project is $315 million to $470 million, according to the environmental report prepared for the Hawaii Technology Development Corp., the state agency in charge of the plan.
An initial phase projected for development over the next three years would cost an estimated $100 million to $150 million and be limited to infrastructure including roads and utilities on land that was once part of a pineapple plantation and is still zoned for agriculture.
State planners envision federal and county agencies paying for their own facilities and chipping in to pay for shared facilities, though costs for design, permitting and infrastructure of the overall campus are so far being borne by state taxpayers.
To date, about $17 million has been spent on the project, which included buying the land from Castle & Cooke Inc. for $9.8 million in 2017 and $7 million to produce a market study, conceptual plans, the environmental review and other things related to planning and design.
In 2022 the Legislature appropriated an additional $17.8 million to acquire more land and $35 million to start construction, but this funding got vetoed by then-Gov. David Ige as being premature.
This year, lawmakers are considering a $100 million appropriation to start construction on a first phase limited to utilities and an initial road segment that would allow the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency to build a new operating base.
The entire road for the campus is expected to cost $150 million all by itself and allow full build-out of facilities in six phases over 15 years.
The pending appropriation measure, Senate Bill 1469, sailed through a Feb. 27 Senate Ways and Means Committee hearing on a 12-0 vote, followed by a 24-0 vote by the full Senate on March 7.
Eight state and two county agencies testified in support of the bill at the hearing, including Hawaii Emergency Management, the Hawaii Office of Homeland Security and the state Office of Enterprise Technology Services.
Michael Vincent, deputy director of the state Department of Law Enforcement, an agency created last year, told Ways and Means members that the campus will benefit the public by providing a permanent home for a number of agencies while consolidating training and operations.
James Ireland, director of the Honolulu Emergency Services Department, said EMS anticipates having space for training, disaster supplies storage and a station to back up existing ambulance service from Wahiawa to Waikele.
“This is an ideal and important location as we contend with things like sea-level rise. This is very far from the shore and has proximity to really all parts of the island via the different freeways,” he said. “And so it really would be ideal for Honolulu EMS and the disaster services that we provide.”
Moving some existing agency facilities out of flood zones, tsunami evacuation zones and areas expected to be affected by future sea-level rise has been part of the rationale for the campus. Other reasons include reducing facility maintenance costs by sharing facilities, reducing needs to do some training on the mainland and allowing some agencies, such as the Sheriff Division of the state Department of Public Safety and Hawaii Emergency Management, to move out of outdated or scattered sites.
The project does have critics, including some people who have told lawmakers that the land should be used for food production while the money would be better spent on affordable housing and other needs.
A few people commenting on the bill compared the project to a police and fire training complex planned for a forested area of Atlanta. Protesters, who have derided the project as “Cop City,” have destroyed property, and physical clashes resulted in the death of one protester and the wounding of a police officer.
“I feel shame that members of the State Senate are promoting this travesty by fast-tracking it,” Ruta Jordans said in written testimony to Ways and Means members. “At a time when there are so many real-life social needs in Hawaii for affordable housing, local food, forests, sufficient clean water, etc., this bill would take vital agricultural land and build a military super playground, using climate change as the reason.”
Nearly 30 people testified against SB 1469 at the Ways and Means hearing.
On Tuesday the House Committee on Water and Land advanced the bill further on a 6-1 vote, but only after asking some critical questions and learning that the Honolulu Police Department is concerned that it doesn’t have funding to help pay for many facilities proposed for the campus that HPD already uses.
Stephen Silva Jr., an HPD Information Technology Division major, also relayed two other concerns in written testimony Tuesday. One is about potential HPD helicopter flight restrictions because the military controls airspace in the area, and the other is over security, given plans for a troubled-youth diversion program in the area.
Rep. Sonny Ganaden, a Water and Land Committee member, asked whether it made sense to have all emergency service operators in the same place from a standpoint of a risk to one being a risk to all.
Ganaden (D, Kalihi-Kalihi Kai-Hickam Village) also asked about concern being expressed at a national level about the appropriateness of such facilities, which some opponents describe as militarizing public safety.
About 25 people or organizations submitted testimony against SB 1469 for Tuesday’s hearing, including the Environmental Caucus of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, which called the First Responder Technology Campus plan “massive overkill” for improving emergency response needs.
Ganaden, who also questioned the cost of the project relative to the needs of various agencies, voted against the bill while six other members voted to advance the measure with the appropriation sum zeroed out as a way to prompt more debate on the bill ahead.
Linda Ichiyama (D, Fort Shafter Flats-Salt Lake-Pearl Harbor), who as Water and Land Committee chair recommended the change to the bill, acknowledged all the concerns but noted that one agency, Hawaii Emergency Management, is depending on the First Responder Technology Campus for badly needed new facilities.
Hawaii Emergency Management, an agency that sent out an errant incoming ballistic missile alert in 2018, currently operates out of cramped and outdated space in a World War I-era bunker at Diamond Head Crater.
The agency has received $1.75 million in federal grants, with a $300,000 state match, since 2021 to spend on early design work for its planned new facility, which is projected to cost $110 million.
Meanwhile, the agency leading the campus development plan, HTDC, plans to discuss opportunities for other federal funding with Hawaii’s representatives in Congress.
HTDC also intends to seek a county zoning change from the Honolulu City Council because the entire 243-acre First Responder Technology Campus site is still zoned for agriculture. Castle & Cooke previously obtained a state-level land-use change from agriculture to urban for most of the site as part of an unrealized plan to expand its neighboring office and warehouse complex Mililani Tech Park.
As for funding, SB 1469 is now referred to the House Committee on Higher Education and Technology, followed by the House Finance Committee.
PROPOSED USERS
Expected users of a Hawaii first responder campus:
FEDERAL
>> U.S. Office of Homeland Security Investigations
>> U.S. Marshals Service
>> Federal Bureau of Investigation
>> Federal Fire Department
STATE
>> Hawaii Technology Development Corp.
>> Hawaii Emergency Management Agency
>> Hawaii National Guard
>> Office of Homeland Security/Fusion Center
>> Department of Transportation Airport Rescue Fire Fighters
>> Department of Transportation Harbor Police
>> Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Forestry and Wildlife
>> Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement
>> Department of Public Safety
>> Office of Enterprise Technology Services
>> University of Hawaii Community College System
COUNTY
>> Department of Emergency Management
>> Emergency Medical Services
>> Honolulu Police Department
>> Honolulu Fire Department
