Commission to Take Up New Pahoa Shopping Center

The biggest commercial development planned yet for Pahoa will come up for its first regulatory test on Aug. 1.

That’s when the Windward Planning Commission will consider an application from B.T. Kuwahara LLC to create a nearly 10-acre shopping center at the intersection of Pahoa Village Road and Kahakai Boulevard.

The commission will take up landowner Bryson Kuwahara’s request to change the state land-use designation of three parcels of land from agriculture to urban and to rezone them to a village commercial designation.

As proposed, the 104,143-square-foot center would be anchored by a supermarket and contain a post office, two restaurants, medical clinic, dental clinic, garden center and other commercial offerings.

Kuwahara’s proposal includes an 830-foot extension of Kahakai Boulevard past Pahoa Village Road and installation of a traffic signal at that intersection.

The $20 million project was first proposed more than a year ago but the proceedings were delayed while an environmental assessment was prepared.

The final version of that EA was recently completed and submitted to the state Office of Environmental Quality Control.

According to the environmental study, the project would commence upon acquisition of necessary permits and approvals and could be completed in 2014.