Jason Genegabus
All of us at Building Industry Hawaii are still basking in the feelings of pride and aloha that filled the Honolulu Country Club in June as we celebrated our 2024 Hawai‘i’s Top 25 Contractors Awards with a luncheon attended by many of this year’s honorees.
That day was an opportunity for Hawai‘i’s top builders to enjoy a well-deserved victory lap with their peers. A lot of time, manpower and money goes into erecting structures that are expected to serve the community for decades to come.
But a recent issue of the Hawai‘i Asphalt Paving Industry’s monthly newsletter reminded me it’s important to focus not only on the big, important projects — but also the smaller ones that might not seem important to a majority of residents.
After more than 15 months of (mostly) patiently waiting, Big Island motorists are happy to enjoy rehabilitated roadways around the busy area of Keawe and Kilauea streets in downtown Hilo. Along with removing bumps in the road, crews from Jas. W. Glover Ltd. installed new sidewalks with ADA-compliant curb ramps and completed associated water and sewer infrastructure upgrades.
It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but this highly trafficked area hasn’t seen repaving work done since the early 1990s according to HAPI, which represents asphalt pavement producers and laydown contractors statewide as well as design consultants and other industries related to pavement preservation.
Jas. W. Glover Ltd. successfully excavated the roadway to a subgrade depth of 32 inches before installing four lifts of aggregate base course with geotextile/geogrid, followed by six inches of asphalt-treated base and a two-inch asphalt surface mix that included a polymer-modified binder.
The company also had to relocate numerous water, sewer, gas and communication lines, as well as lower sewer manhole cone sections in multiple locations.
According to Hawai‘i County, this project cost $12.3 million to complete, with 80 percent of the cost paid for by the federal government. Another $2 million was spent on sewer upgrades and $1.4 million on water infrastructure.
“The road looks like … a million bucks,” Hilo Town Tavern’s Peter Berghuis told KITV4 News in April as work was nearing completion. “They did a great job and they got it flat as a pancake, no bumps anymore. The cars aren’t getting wrecked.”
Sometimes, all that’s needed to make a big difference in someone’s life is to get the little things — like sidewalks, streets and sewers — done properly in an efficient manner.
With Aloha,
Jason Genegabus
Senior Editor
[email protected]
