Aloha means goodbye for football stadium

A state department in Hawaii reportedly has published a request for bidders to redevelop the property under the current Aloha Stadium near Honolulu, Hawaii.

An October AP News report says the demolition process for the 50,000-seat stadium, which was used predominantly for University of Hawaii football games until late 2020, could start in the fall of 2022.

The college football team has moved into a smaller stadium on the university campus, meaning the roughly 100 acre site is being planned for mixed use residential, commercial and hospitality industry development.

According to AP, Hawaii’s Department of Accounting and General Services is overseeing the bidding and procurement process for developers interested in the property.

Before redevelopment can be started, the 46-year-old stadium, which according to AP was closed after being “declared off-limits” for structural safety reasons, will have to be dismantled.

Last year, proposed legislation in Hawaii was reportedly a detriment to the demolition process because of landfill space limitations. However, many stadium projects result high double-digit recycling rates because concrete and steel are their predominant materials.

 Aloha Stadium was built with a material called “weathering steel” that may have played a role in its early demise, according to a 2018 corrosion assessment.

That report and others seem to indicate the steel was subject to corrosion in Hawaii’s salt-water heavy environment, and that a traditional concrete stadium (with the steel enveloped by concrete) may have provided a longer life.