The Hawaii County DPW recently provided this Ane Keohokalole Highway construction update:

“Ane Keohokalole Hwy at Kealakehe Parkway will close for construction.

West Hawai‘i Civic Center:

The entrance to the West Hawai‘i Civic Center from Ane Keohokalole Hwy will close October 17. Mid-December [December 23rd] is the tentative date to reopen. Access to West Hawai‘i Civic Center will be from Kealakehe Parkway.

Kealakehe High School:

Ane Keohokalole Hwy will close to Puohulihuli St. Mid-January [January 27th] is the tentative date to reopen. Access to Kealakehe High School will be from Keanalehu Dr.

All lanes on Kealakehe Parkway will remain open during road construction.”

The paving schedule for Palani Road should be finalized soon. I’ll post this information when it becomes available. The first phase of this work entails laying the new concrete lanes and sidewalk on the Ka’u side of the roadway. Then traffic will be rerouted to the new roadway after the concrete is cured. The existing pavement will also be demolished and paved with concrete.

Sandwich Isles Communications is now reselling Sprint’s cellular phone service and bundling it with their DSL service. I wonder if SIC is receiving additional subsidies as result? Sprint NexTel already receives $765.00 (per subscriber) in subsidies to provide service to DHHL homesteads.

Longs Drugs wants to build a new Waimea store. However, they’ve chosen a horrible location alongside Kawaihae Road. Atorney and Waimea resident Margaret Wille blogged about these concerns here.

Lastly, the Palamanui College roadway project manager provided this construction update:

“The roadway work is continuing, we are fine grading the swales now, and coordinating with HELCO for the relocation of the 4 power poles on Kaiminani with some underground conduit. We expect this to happen by the end of the month, and then we can finish 3 more drywells on the north side of Kaiminani and rest of the intersection work. This will then allow us to base and pave the entire project.”