Aloha Stadium on track to open for 2028 UH football season; priority listed offerors selected

The New Aloha Stadium Entertainment District (NASED) announced that it has selected two priority-listed offerors that will be considered to develop and operate the new Aloha Stadium and surrounding entertainment district as one integrated public-private-partnership project.

The selection and notification of the priority-listed offerors has occurred earlier than scheduled, marking the end of the qualifications phase and commencement of the proposals phase, and keeping the new Aloha Stadium on track to open for the 2028 University of Hawaiʻi football season, according to an announcement.

“That this is moving forward ahead of schedule speaks highly of the state employees and private sector partners working to bring this project to fruition,” said Gov. Josh Green, M.D. “In addition to a great new stadium, we will possibly have 4,500 housing units near the rail line and a reinvigorated community around Hālawa.”

“We were very pleased with the response to the qualifications phase of the RFP,” said Brennon Morioka, Stadium Authority chair in a news release. “The level of interest by potential bidders demonstrated the attractiveness of NASED. And the quality of the priority-listed offerors gives us confidence that the NASED project will result in not just a new stadium but a revitalized community we can all be proud of.” 

The developer-led teams that were priority-listed include:

Aloha Hālawa District Partners (AHDP), a consortium comprising of:

• Development Ventures Group, Inc., Stanford Carr Development, LLC, Ameresco, Inc., and Aloha Stadium Community Development, LLC (The Cordish Company) as the lead equity members;
• RMA Architects, Populous, SB Architects, Henning Larsen, Alakea Design Group, and WCIT Architects as the design team;
• Hawaiian Dredging Construction Company, Inc. and AECOM Hunt as the construction team; and
• Castle & Cooke Hawaiʻi and Wilson Okamoto Corp as other team members.

Waiola Development Partners (WDP), a consortium comprising of:

• EllisDon Capital, Inc., BSC Acquisitions II, LLC, and Kobayashi Group LLC as the lead equity members;
• Design Partners Incorporated, MANICA Architecture, PA, and Stantec Architecture, Inc. as the design team;
• Nan, Inc. as the construction team; and
• Machete Group, ES CON Sports & Entertainment, Biederman Redevelopment Ventures, SSFM International, Inc., Rider Levett Bucknall Ltd., SHADE Group LLC, and PBR Hawaii & Associates, Inc. as other team members. 

The selection of the priority-listed offerors follows response NASED received after it issued its Request for Proposals in December 2023. The response deadline for this qualifications phase concluded on Feb. 14, and the responses were subsequently scored by a specialist evaluation committee selected by the state for the NASED project. This committee is composed of a mix of state employees and subject-matter experts from the development industry.

Responses were assessed against the following criteria:

• Administrative Response (“acceptable,” “potentially acceptable,” or “unacceptable”)
• Technical Response:
  • Project Understanding (20 points)
  • Team Structure and Governance (20 points)
  • Experience and Capability (30 points)
  • Financial Capacity (30 points)

The NASED project will now move into the proposals phase, open only to priority-listed offerors, with the objective of concluding this phase with one preferred offeror. The deadline for proposals will be in summer 2024, with the selection of a preferred offeror targeted for fall 2024, and final execution of an agreement targeted for summer 2025.

Businesses or organizations that would like to register their interest with the priority-listed offerors may submit their contact information on the “Doing Business with NASED” page on the project website.