Long-awaited improvements to a long-shuttered police substation in Wai‘anae finaly began on Monday.
Nearly a decade ago, in 2016, a $16 million police station was built in Wai‘anae, where it has remained in disuse ever since. The second floor of the facility has been unfinished, left without air conditioning, power outlets and other basic functional infrastructure.
Contemporary reporting at the time hypothesized that the project ran out of money because of a large radio antenna at the site of the former police substation, which was built in 1961. Construction crews were legally not allowed to move or disable the antenna, for emergency purposes, leading to an expensive process where the antenna was lifted, the old station was demolished, the new station was built and the antenna reinstalled.
Since then, short staffing at the Honolulu Police Department has made filling the substation a low-priority project.
In 2023, however, the county began the slow process of improving the substation. That year, the City Council allocated $300,000 to HPD to carry out the improvements to make the substation’s second floor usable.
And in March of that year, the Council also passed a resolution urging HPD to develop a plan to fully utilize the derelict building. The resolution, introduced by Wai‘anae Councilwoman Andria Tupola, requested that HPD create a ninth patrol district to address limited police resources in the region.
That resolution stated that, at HPD’s then-current recruitment rate, it would take six years to fill all the department’s nearly 350 vacant officer positions, assuming no other officers left the force in the interim.
While the new patrol district never came to pass, the renovations to the substation’s second story began Monday.
“We promised the community that strengthening public safety in Waiʻanae would be a top priority — and today, construction finally begins,” Tupola said in a statement. “Our community is thankful to finally see long-overdue progress on a project that is so critically needed.”
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