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Maui Research & Technology Park is close to updating its master plan, which will allow for housing aimed at park workers, new business opportunities, a site for Kihei Charter School and upgrades at Maui Brewing Co., officials said last month.
Land use approvals to update the park’s master plan undergo a second-and-final reading before the Maui County Council on Friday. The estimated $1.4 billion makeover, with build-out over 20 years, will still need subdivision approval, approval of project infrastructure design and building permits, among other requirements before some projects can get started, said Project Coordinator Steve Perkins.
But when plans can be realized, the park will begin to modernize, with sustainable development, housing and amenities in close proximity to “knowledge-based employment,” Perkins said.
The park’s developer is Maui R&T Partners, a partnership between Pacific Rim Land and Woodridge Capital Partners. The park’s first building opened in the early 1990s. But only a portion of the park, located mauka of Piilani Highway across from Kihei Elementary School and the Kihei Community Center, has been developed. The master plan will encompass 309 acres, the majority of the park.
Kihei Charter School, which was started by the nonprofit South Maui Learning Ohana, will be one of the first projects built under the master plan, with work beginning as early as the end of August.
With revised setbacks and other changes, the school can build an “economically feasible” three-story building closer to the street, which gives more room in the back for students, said Gene Zarro, CEO of the South Maui Learning Ohana.
The school will have around 575 students this school year, with classes in three leased locations around Kihei. The school has a wait list that can be alleviated with a new campus. The approximately $20 million project could accommodate as many as 700 students, Zarro said.
The building is being funded mostly through a federal government loan along with funds from the nonprofit. Zarro is eager to begin construction, as the school has a federal grant to begin a prekindergarten program in one year. If the grant is not used, the funding will lapse.
Across the street from the planned school building is Maui Brewing Co., which is hoping to expand and upgrade its facilities. It currently has a brewery and tasting room at the park.
“The changes in the park will allow us to continue to grow and realize our potential on the Kihei site. We are highly restricted in terms of space and the setbacks currently required are stifling this growth,” owner Garrett Marrero said.
Maui Brewing Co. would like to build carports and awnings along its perimeter to allow for solar panels, Marrero said. The company wants to achieve 100 percent renewable energy use by 2018.
Current rules do not allow for any structure within 40 feet of the property line, which is making expansion tough, Marrero said. “We are building what we can now,” he said. “I believe the new changes will also bring new life to the park as it reduces minimum lot sizes and increase the uses available.”
Jeanne Unemori Skog, president and CEO of the Maui Economic Development Board, which helped develop the park, said that a campuslike setting was originally envisioned for the park, and that’s how the park looks now. But today, people are looking for amenities and things more on a “human scale,” Skog said.
“That’s why the park is proposing including housing, because you want to be able to do that, walk from your home to your workplace and have cafes where you can gather with other people that work in the park and exchange ideas,” Skog said.
Currently there are six buildings in the park owned by third parties, Perkins said. Tenants include Akimeka, an information technology service provider; Pacific Disaster Center, which promotes disaster risk reduction concepts and strategies; Pelatron Inc., an engineering and technology development government contracting firm; and the corporate offices of construction company Goodfellow Bros.
A draft environmental impact statement on the master plan was filed in June 2012. It called for a mix of single-family and multifamily housing units totaling 1,250 units. Perkins said that senior and low-income housing projects are both allowed uses in the park and that vacation rentals are prohibited. The housing projects will take several more years to develop as developers buy the entitled parcels and then build and sell the housing, Perkins said.
Plans also call for a mixed-use village center, a business hotel and expansion of knowledge-industry lots along with open space and parks.
The build-out will be in phases, with Phase 1 completed in 2024 and Phase 2 in 2034, according to Maui County Council documents. Perkins said that future development beyond the park’s existing core will be privately funded by Maui R&T Partners and those who buy parcels.
Perkins said the current land use codes do not allow the type of development now seen as desirable, including sustainable development, housing and amenities in close proximity to knowledge-based employment and efficient use of the land.
“While the R&T Park has been (an) entitled development for over 30 years, the regulatory process for updating the master plan to the state of the art has taken over eight years so far,” Perkins said.
The master plan also has to abide by conditions placed on it by the state Land Use Commission and the Maui County Council, he said.
* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.