{"id":685,"date":"2026-06-21T10:39:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T10:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingtohawaiiguide.com\/?p=685"},"modified":"2026-06-21T10:39:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T10:39:20","slug":"county-eyes-kona-kmart-for-events-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingtohawaiiguide.com\/?p=685","title":{"rendered":"County eyes Kona Kmart for events center"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<p>Hawaii County is considering acquiring the long-vacant former Kmart store in Kailua-Kona\u2019s Makalapua Shopping Center for conversion to an events center for West Hawaii.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/movingtohawaiiguide.com\/?p=683\">South Africa salvages draw with late penalty after Czechs take early lead<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Hawaii County is considering acquiring the long-vacant former Kmart store in Kailua-Kona\u2019s Makalapua Shopping Center for conversion to an events center for West Hawaii.<\/p>\n<p>Benson Medina, the county\u2019s Research and Development director, told attendees at a Waimea Community Meeting Association meeting on June 4 that Micah Kamohoali\u2018i, a kumu hula, fashion designer and Aloha Festivals Island of Hawaii executive director, brought the idea to the county administration.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cHe came in and said, \u2018Hey, I think we could utilize Kmart as a central West Hawaii events center,\u2019\u201d Medina told a full house in a conference room at the W.M. Keck Observatory Headquarters.<\/p>\n<p>Medina said he and Kamohoali\u2018i connected with the landowner, Queen Lili\u2018uokalani Trust, and \u201cwalked the place.\u201d He said that afterward, he talked to Mayor Kimo Alameda and Managing Director Bill Brilhante about the 125,000-square-foot building, which has been vacant since Kmart shuttered in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe see great potential in there,\u201d Medina told the attendees. \u201cAnd the trust wanted to rent the facility out. Some guys wanted to do pickleball, waterslide, whatever. But nobody has, really, the financial strength to take on a facility like that. Because, you know, with Kmart, the (Regal movie theaters) went down. They closed down there \u2014 actually had a leak in the ceiling, and there\u2019s stuff growing in the building. \u2026 And it looks like Macy\u2019s, they\u2019re probably not going to renew their lease. So now, that entire area is open.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Medina said the trust\u2019s long-term plan was to build affordable housing in the area.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, their first thought was, \u2018let\u2019s build a commercial center there and all the housing around it,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cWell, the commercial center, it didn\u2019t stick. So, they want something to happen there. And really, the only guys on the horizon that have a chance of bringing something there viable is us, is the county.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to the county\u2019s property tax website, the assessed value of the building and 11.35 acres of commercially zoned land where it\u2019s situated is $17.67 million.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have had preliminary discussions with the landowner about leasing the building for a multiuse park facility. A walk-through is planned but has not yet occurred,\u201d Tom Callis, spokesman for Alameda, said Tuesday in an email.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/movingtohawaiiguide.com\/?p=681\">U.S. Open leader Wyndham Clark wants a redemption arc. Is that there for him?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Kamohoali\u2018i on Tuesday told the Tribune-Herald he was asked by the county to create a festival for West Hawaii \u201cthat would be an economic draw, especially with the return of the Japanese flights,\u201d which were discontinued during the novel coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI told them, if we have a big event, I need a facility to hold it. I kinda came up with the Kmart idea because I saw it\u2019s been sitting there for so long, empty,\u201d Kamohoali\u2018i said. \u201cMy proposal to them was not just for the Aloha Festivals but to turn it into a multipurpose facility they could use year-round for anything and everything. There aren\u2019t really any concert venues in Kona except for the Kona Bowl parking lot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kamohoali\u2018i said he envisioned the building as a venue for events that in Hilo would be held at the 4,200-seat Edith Kanaka\u2018ole Multi-Purpose Stadium, home of the the Merrie Monarch Festival\u2019s hula competition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought they could use this for concerts, they could use it for sports events, for graduation parties, or even the graduation itself. This could become part of Parks and Rec and become a multipurpose facility,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Transformation of the building \u2014 which has also been mentioned as a possible site for a new Kona hospital \u2014 would require some serious and costly retrofitting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful building, but it\u2019s built to be a department store \u2014 the dropped ceilings and every 10 feet there\u2019s a pillar,\u201d Kamohoali\u2018i said. \u201cWe would need to bring in engineering to cut all the pillars and then reinforce the pillars on the outside so they don\u2019t need the pillars on the inside.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to Kamohoali\u2018i, if the county can acquire the building, either by purchase or lease, the potential is tremendous.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou could put stadium seating in there,\u201d he said. \u201cIt looks like a convention center. It\u2019s massive. When I walked in, I went, \u2018holy crap!\u2019 You could hardly see the other end of the building. If you opened it up, I\u2019m sure you could fit thousands of people in there. There\u2019s a large parking lot.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s an excellent location for a multipurpose venue, because it\u2019s right in the middle of town where it can serve people in the area from (Kona) Palisades, all the folks in the Kaloko Mauka area. It\u2019s close enough to the airport. It\u2019s close enough to all the hotels.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/movingtohawaiiguide.com\/?p=679\">Paraguay win knocks out Turkey. Will Almir\u00f3n\u2019s mouth-covering red card serve as a reminder?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Email John Burnett at john.burnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>County eyes Kona Kmart for events center &#8211; Hawaii News | Hawaii Tribune-Herald<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>County eyes Kona Kmart for events center - Moving to Hawaii Guide<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movingtohawaiiguide.com\/?p=685\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"County eyes Kona Kmart for events center - 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