KIHEI - Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge has the money and now the contractor to begin construction of its planned 7,500-square-foot visitor center and business office off Mokulele Highway.
The U.S. Department of the Interior awarded a $4.9 million contract to Bodell Construction Inc., according to a news release issued Thursday.
The construction company has its corporate office in Salt Lake City, its Pacific regional office in Honolulu and an office in Kahului.
The funding for the project comes from President Barack Obama's American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, or the stimulus package.
In a statement from Washington, U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said: "Not only are we putting people to work in Hawaii, but we're creating a visitor center that will benefit local residents, visitors and the wildlife of the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge."
The construction project will employ 20 people full time, although as many as 35 workers could be on site at any one time. Work is set to begin in May and continue for 12 months, said U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service spokeswoman Barbara Maxfield on Thursday.
Bodell Construction Estimating Director Evan Farnsworth said the company is committed to employing Maui people for the job. He noted that the project's manager and supervisor already live on Maui.
The 704-acre wildlife refuge has never had a visitor center. The park's four staffers and dozens of volunteers have been working out of a couple of trailers and storage containers since their office burned down several years ago.
"We have never had a building attached to the ground, and certainly we have never had a facility where we can educate and interact with the schoolchildren and other visitors," said Glynnis Nakai, the refuge manager.
Nakai has said she hopes that the new visitor center will help draw 10,000 visitors to the refuge annually.
Because of space constraints, the center will be located on the opposite side of the refuge, far away from its popular boardwalk, which finally opened this winter after a series of delays and mishaps that took years to resolve. (For instance, the boardwalk initially used recycled materials that could not hold up to the sunny conditions and buckled and wrinkled.)
Nakai said the visitor center plans are much simpler.
Winzler & Kelly, the consulting engineering company, and RIM Architects Inc. have completed the plans and designs for the visitor center project just inside the park entrance at Milepost 6 on Mokulele Highway. The new building will sit on 13 acres of recently purchased "upland," which is an area away from the wetland and coastline.
The new building will be just up the road from the trailer and near the refuge entrance sign.
Nakai said there was no space to put the new visitor center near the boardwalk.
The designs also call for photovoltaic panels to heat water and supply electricity.
* Chris Hamilton can be reached at chamilton@mauinews.com.
