If you build it, they will come.

​

Okay, the state of Hawaiʻi has a long history of overdue projects, especially on the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa campus. There have also been projects we never wanted, but we ended up satisfied that it was done, like the H3 freeway and the Tetsuo Harano tunnels.

In June, the rail will operate soon, but why has a new Aloha Stadium been delayed time and time again? Sure, the original Aloha Stadium is home to countless memories like the Bruno Mars concerts, the 50th State Fair, high school graduations, UH Football, Monster Trucks, and Hawaiian Supercross (one of my favorite, yet very few memories of Aloha Stadium). Still, a new stadium (I found out and agree with) is way overdue.

When Hawaiian Supercross and Monster Trucks came to the state in 2019, they were big hits, and they were expected to return in 2020. Eric Perronard, the promotor of the Hawaiian Supercross was trying to negotiate a five-year deal to have Hawaiian Supercross continue; however, COVID hit, essentially canceling everything, and the stadium was condemned in Dec. 2020. Both events will likely be once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.

​

I did one of my UHMTV stories on UH Football moving their games on campus for the 2021 season. I spoke to Senator Glenn Wakai on Feb. 16, 2021, as my "birthday present" on where things were currently at with the new stadium. Wakai had been pushing for a new stadium for years, but it went on deaf ears.

​

When I spoke to Wakai over Zoom at the time for my UHMTV story, he told me the construction of the new stadium takes about two years and was expected to be ready by the start of 2024. Well, we are over six months away from that year, and construction has yet to begin due to numerous delays. Wakai told me that the Stadium Authority, the Department of Accounting and General Services (DAGS), and many other fellow lawmakers were also behind having a new stadium, but the only hurdle seemed to be former governor David Ige.

Eventually, Ige agreed to a new stadium, but the delays have been adding up like credit card debt. When Josh Green was hired as the new governor this year, I thought construction would finally get off and running, but nothing has happened.

In Dec. 2020, the stadium was condemned, and the UH Football team was left with no place to play. While Maui's War Memorial Stadium and other Oahu high school fields remained alternatives, the Clarence T.C. Ching Complex at UH Mānoa ultimately won out as UH's new home venue. With only a 9,000-seat capacity, UH officials are scrambling to get to 15,000 for UH to still qualify as Division I.

Do not forget the miserable two-year tenure that former head coach Todd Graham gave, which resulted in over two dozen players transferring, including local boy Chevan Cordeiro.

In April 2022, I spoke with former regent Jeff Portnoy about the stadium matter as per another college assignment before graduation. He told me UH moving their games on campus was "trying to make the bad of an awful situation." When Portnoy was a regent in the mid-2010s, he brought up the stadium's condition, but everyone still looked the other way.

After March 2023, the goodbye party for Aloha Stadium took place, and we ran into another delay; if another delay's on the horizon, and work at T.C. Ching Field is not finished by August '23, is the legislature confident the NCAA will give UH another pass for 2023? Must be, because the new stadium is now expected to be ready by 2028.

​

Had the public, UH, the legislature, and others jumped on that bandwagon for building another stadium when concerns were brought up all those years ago, one could say that construction may very well have been finished before COVID hit in 2020.