[CPEO-MEF] Kalaeloa still waiting for redevelopment

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Hawai'i
THE HONOLULU ADVERTISER
Kalaeloa still waiting for redevelopment
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
June 16, 2003

KALAELOA — Six years ago, Linda Painter's Subway sandwich shop at
Barbers Point Naval Air Station was one of the top-selling stores in the
state.

Leaves and weeds have taken over the concourse near what used to be the
Navy Exchange, right, and Furniture Gallery and a restaurant at Kalaeloa
since the Navy closed Barbers Point Naval Air Station four years ago.

These days, it's weeds that seem to be flourishing the most since the
Navy shut down its air operations in 1999, and whole sections of the
3,700-acre base on the 'Ewa plain turned into a militaristic ghost town.

Attached to the Subway, a McDonald's restaurant with leaves scattered
across the floor sits empty, as do the adjacent Navy Exchange and
Furniture World — once bustling centers now overrun by bougainvillea and
trees whose growth has gone unchecked.

A USA Today newspaper box stands in the covered causeway, long since
emptied of the day's news, and vandals have smashed in the front plate
glass door of Furniture World.

Painter said she's surviving on pockets of habitation — Hawai'i Army
National Guard and Coast Guard elements mostly. But after several years
of planning for the base closure, followed by little activity over the
last few years, she is not happy with the new Kalaeloa.

"June of 1999 it closed, and look at the place," she said. "They (state
and city government) had six years to budget for this area."

This article can be viewed at:
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Jun/16/ln/ln01a.html

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