KAILUA-KONA — Old Kona Airport Park got another face-lift Wednesday.
About a week after volunteers, Hawaii County and state crews came together to clean up the park following the removal of homeless individuals there, a large swath of the parking lot surrounding the Makaeo Events Pavilion got a fresh coat of blacktop, filling the numerous potholes and cracks that had developed over the years.
“We were able to locate some available funding to give it (the park) a boost,” said Charmaine Kamaka, Parks and Recreation director.
Keeping the project in-house with crews from the departments of Public Works and Parks and Recreation doing the work, kept costs down, Kamaka said. The paving cost $115,133 and re-striping, which will take place in the near future, cost $8,000.
“That’s the least expensive you’re going to get,” she said.
But that’s not the end of the work. Crews will eventually paint the old airplane hangar mauka of the pavilion. The hangar was recently turned over by the state to the county for Parks and Recreation to use for storage, Kamaka said.
As for additional paving at the park, including paving the former runway, Kamaka said that is contingent on funding being available, which is currently not the case.
It’s unclear when the last time the area around the Makaeo Events Pavilion had been paved, but according to West Hawaii Today archives the pavilion opened in 1983, costing the state $1.2 million. It included amenities such as 208 parking stalls, as well as overflow parking.
What is now the 118-park was once Kona Airport, which opened not long after the end of World War II. It was closed in 1960 because its facilities had become obsolete and was unable to accommodate passenger jets. In 1970, then-Keahole Airport (now Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport) opened and the state converted Kona Airport into a shoreline park, which was dedicated in 1976.
Over the years, some improvements were made by the state, but the park became neglected. Attempts by the county to assume control of the park dating to as early as 1971 were unsuccessful until the county obtained a lease on the park’s southern acreage and constructed Kekuaokalani Gymnasium, Kona Community Aquatics Center and Simmons Field in the 1990s. The county took over the entire 118 acres of the park from the state in 2008.