Big changes at Honolulu Airport have wrapped up in time for APEC arrivals.
Governor Neil Abercrombie got a first-hand look at the end result of $7 million in airport renovations and repairs, expedited by an APEC deadline as the international economic meeting gets underway next week.
"What D.O.T. tried to do and I think succeeded in was say what do we need to do that needs to be done anyway and what can we do also that will facilitate the APEC experience?" he says.
The list of Department of Transporation improvements includes this new entryway to customs that gives visitors a glimpse of Hawaii’s natural side from the landscaping to the wave-like ceiling. There’s also a star compass developed by Nainoa Thompson and the Polynesian Voyaging Society – a project suggested by airport employees.
"There’s so much symbolism behind it, and it means so much to a lot of people," said airport employee Dennis Lopez. "In all cases we’ve always come to this place, the most remote place on earth, by looking up toward the heavens."
Many improvements just took some lighting, paint and ceiling tiles.
"It’s brighter its clean it is efficient, it shows a little respect for the people coming. Before it just looked run down," Abercrombie said. "That was a dark dank tunnel, that wasn’t a corridor it was a tunnel."
The outdoor portion of that passage from international gates to customs was flood-prone, now it has proper drainage and a rock garden.
New planters and curbs along the Ewa concourse roadway and new canopies outside international arrivals are other fixes.
Beyond the airport the Department of Transportation has also completed a major upgrade to Nimitz Highway with some punch list items wrapping up by Friday, also -
"We’ve been repaving from Piikoi all the way to Kalakaua Boulevard and we expect that to be complete by the end of this week," said D.O.T. spokesman Dan Meisenzahl.
See the original article at: KHON2 Local News
