HILO — Changes are underway for Pahoa’s Malama Market, but this time it’s not because of a lava flow.
In a few years, the grocery store will be moving down the street to become the anchor tenant of Puna Kai, a marketplace being developed by B.T. Kuwahara LLC.
The new and expanded Malama Market is set to open in 2018, according to a Wednesday release from Sullivan Family of Companies, which operates the store as well as the Foodland supermarket chain.
Company spokeswoman Sheryl Toda said the 35,000-square-foot facility will be the largest Malama Market in the state.
“We want to be able to offer our customers expanded selection,” she said.
Once the new store opens, Malama Market also plans to hire 20 additional employees, Toda said. The old store space will be leased out, but a replacement tenant has not yet been identified.
“This community is important to us and thanks to the support of our customers we’ve outgrown our original store,” Jenai Wall, chairman for Sullivan Family of Companies, said in a statement.
The current Malama Market is 12,000 square feet and first opened in March 2005. In December 2014, it closed temporarily because it was in the path of the June 27 lava flow. The flow did not reach the store, and the market re-opened in March 2015.
When it is complete, Puna Kai will consist of about 104,000 square feet of leasable space. Besides its new anchor tenant, it will feature a garden center, a family medical clinic, restaurants and retail shops, including a hardware store.
The future site of the marketplace is a 9.93-acre located across three lots at the end of Kahakai Boulevard extension on the mauka side of Pahoa Village Road.
In 2013, the Hawaii County Council, acting on the recommendation of the Windward Planning Commission, approved a zoning change shifting the properties’ designation from Agricultural to Urban, which allows for commercial use.
In its application at the time, B.T. Kuwahara proposed several traffic accommodations at the site, including two driveways off the Kahakai Boulevard extension and two driveways off Pahoa Village Road.
The project coordinators would also install a traffic light at the intersection of Kahakai and Pahoa Village Road. There is currently a temporary signal at that intersection as part of a detour route for ongoing construction of Pahoa’s future roundabout.
Plans for the Puna Kai site were in the works before the Hawaii Department of Transportation began work on the roundabout.
During the 2013 hearing, B.T. Kuwahara consultant Jon McElvaney said that the combination of the roundabout slowing traffic down and the signal at Kahakai would make the area more safe.
McElvaney could not be reached for comment by press time.
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
