WAILUKU - It's all "real preliminary," but Maui Memorial Medical Center is squeezed for space for facilities and parking on its 15-acre site and is casting around for what its options might be.
Maui Economic Opportunity occupies a 1.2-acre chunk, one of five parcels owned by Maui County along Mahalani Street that's part of the Cameron Center complex.
During a Maui Planning Commission hearing Tuesday on its transportation center in Puunene, MEO Executive Director Sandy Baz said MEO had been approached by Maui Memorial Medical Center about the MEO site in Wailuku.
He said MEO has no desire to move from a building that is only 10 years old. But taking the long view, he said, the agency might eventually strike an agreement with the hospital.
MMMC Chief Executive Officer Wesley Lo said Wednesday that he was surprised to learn that the "real preliminary and informal" inquiries the hospital had made to MEO were becoming known.
But when he learned that MEO might have a new property in operation "in two or three years," he made inquiries. One thought would be to use the Harry & Jeannette Weinberg Family Center for a "nursing laboratory" to provide additional training for staff nurses.
However, so far it is just an inquiry, Lo said.
The Maui Memorial site includes both the hospital and the state's Wailuku Health Center. Its Hawaii Health Systems Corp. parent, through the state, also has title to three parcels mauka of the hospital with three acres.
The Cameron Center-MEO sites, which are all county lands, comprise about 12 acres.
