Chinese New Year festival on Maui!

Excerpt from: KHON2.com

The Twelfth Annual Maui Chinese New Year Festival, sponsored in part by the County of Maui, will be held this year on Saturday, February 05, 2011, from 9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., at the Maui Mall in Kahului.

There will be Chinese food booths, Chinese arts and crafts, local produce, calligraphy, and leather brush artistry. Mayor Alan Arakawa will open the festivities at 10:00 a.m. Lion Dancers and firecracker blessings will follow immediately thereafter, and be repeated at 1:30 p.m., weather permitting.

Event festivities include a Keiki Chinese Costume Contest for girls and boys twelve years and younger. There will be a Tai Chi demonstration, Kung Fu demonstration, Chinese cooking demonstration, and Chinese dancers. There will also be Good Luck photos for the kids, Rabbit crafts, and a Children’s Art Contest exhibit.

KUNG HEE FAT CHOY! TIM FOOK TIM SAU! MAN SAI PENG ON!

The Year of the RABBIT, also known as the Yin Metal Rabbit, 4709 on the Chinese Lunar calendar, begins with the new moon at midnight, between Wednesday, February 2, 2011, and Thursday, February 3, 2011. Other Rabbit Years are 1915, 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, and 1999.

XIANG NIAN KUAI LE! GONG XI FA CAI!

Solar electric systems proliferate with much room to grow

Regional restrictions place a cap on the number of systems in any given area

By Erika Engle
Article from: STAR-ADVERTISER

Consumer-installed solar electric systems on Oahu, the Big Island and in Maui County more than doubled in 2010 with 3,967 systems added, compared with 1,916 in 2009.

“This will help all of us in Hawaii as we continue to make progress in cutting our dependence on imported oil,” said Robbie Alm, Hawaiian Electric Co. executive vice president, in a statement.

The installations have increased the state’s electric generation capacity by 13 megawatts, enough to power 3,350 homes.

Alm commended the solar industry for “helping make Hawaii a solar leader.”

“Coordinating with them, we have worked to make solar power more accessible for our customers,” he said.

Some 17 new large-scale photovoltaic projects will sell electricity back to Hawaiian Electric. They will produce 3.2 megawatts.

However, all for the solar industry is not sunny, as regulations limit the number of customers that can easily install solar and integrate with their island’s utility.

» Oahu circuit map is.gd/HECOmap

» Big Island circuit map is.gd/HELCOmap

» Maui County circuit maps: is.gd/MECOmap

“The irony here is while we in the industry gratefully accept HECO’s congratulations for having a strong year in 2010, at the same time we in the industry are seeing more and more circuits being effectively closed to more PV,” said Marco Mangelsdorf, president of Hilo-based ProVision Solar Inc.

Once a residential area reaches a certain threshold of energy-generating customers, additional residents wanting to sell power to the utility have to pay for a reliability study, Mangelsdorf said. Those can cost $2,500 for an individual residential customer, while commercial customers can pay tens of thousands of dollars.

HECO has produced detailed maps customers can access online to determine whether their area is at or near the generation threshold.

Meanwhile, the government, utilities and solar industry continue working “to set some reliability standards,” said Darren Pai, HECO spokesman. The parties are examining “what can be done to increase the amount of these variable resources we have on the system and make sure we can integrate them all reliably and safely.”

Alexander & Baldwin doubles yearly earnings
A stagnant fourth quarter is outweighed by ocean cargo service, real estate sales and sugar operations

By Andrew Gomes
Article from: Star-Advertiser

Alexander & Baldwin Inc. profit was flat in the last three months of 2010, but bigger gains earlier in the year enabled the diversified Honolulu-based company to more than double full-year earnings.

Fourth-quarter net $20.2 million

Year-earlier net $20.1 million

A&B reported 2010 net income of $92.1 million, up from $44.2 million the year before. The gain came on revenue of $1.6 billion, compared with $1.4 billion in the same comparable period.

Fourth-quarter net income was $20.2 million, barely up from $20.1 million in the 2009 fourth quarter. Revenue for the same period totaled $461.4 million, up from $362.9 million.

Profits for the quarter and year were principally driven by ocean cargo service from China by subsidiary Matson Navigation Co., real estate sales and a turnaround in Maui sugar cane operations.

Stan Kuriyama, A&B president and chief executive officer, characterized last year’s earnings as a rebound from 2009 and said he expects improved results this year as the economy strengthens.

“We begin 2011 with an improving economic environment in Hawaii and on the mainland,” he said in a statement. “Hawaii has been led by major gains in the visitor industry, which contributed to higher employment levels and real personal income. These emerging signs of economic recovery are encouraging and provide us with greater confidence for continued improvement in 2011.”

The biggest chunk of operating profit for A&B in the fourth quarter came from real estate sales that included an industrial complex in California and unimproved land on Maui.

Operating profit from property sales totaled $17.8 million, down from $20.4 million a year earlier when the company sold the Honolulu office building Pacific Guardian Tower, a California retail center and several unimproved parcels on Maui.

In A&B’s real estate leasing division, fourth-quarter operating profit was lower than a year earlier — $8.4 million compared with $10 million — because of lower tenant rents and changes in the property portfolio from sales and acquisitions.

Average occupancy at A&B Hawaii properties in the quarter was 91 percent, down from 95 percent a year earlier. The decline was due in part to A&B’s acquisition last year of a Kapolei industrial complex that is 74 percent occupied. Occupancy for A&B’s mainland property portfolio was 86 percent, up from 83 percent.

At Matson, fourth-quarter operating profit was $11.6 million, down from $13.5 million a year earlier. The decrease was largely due to $19 million in start-up losses for a new China-California cargo service using leased vessels. Higher fuel costs also contributed to the reduced operating profit, A&B said.

Matson container volume to Hawaii was up 8 percent to 37,100 in the fourth quarter from 34,200 a year earlier, but the gain reflected an extra week in Matson’s 2010 fiscal year.

Hawaii automobile shipments slipped in the quarter to 19,800 from 20,600 a year earlier, which A&B said was principally due to the timing of rental car replacements.

A potential big expense for Matson this year could be replacing two interisland barges, though A&B said it hasn’t made a decision. The company has budgeted $45 million as a potential partial payment for the barges this year should it make the move.

A&B expects its China service to be the main driver of better Matson returns this year given that Hawaii’s economy and construction industry are forecast to modestly improve.

The only A&B division to increase operating profit in the fourth quarter was agribusiness, with a $4.6 million return that compared with an $800,000 loss a year earlier. The reversal was primarily due to subsidiary Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. achieving higher production, sales and prices.

A&B projects sustained profitability from its sugar operations this year. The company also expects improved financial results to come from a deal announced in December to turn over its Kauai Coffee Co. to global premium coffee seller Massimo Zanetti Beverage Group of Italy.

The deal, which involves Massimo Zanetti buying the Kauai Coffee brand, leasing A&B’s plantation and retaining all employees, is expected to close in March.

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Kaiwahine Village back on agenda
Time ran out on project under last council

February 3, 2011 – By BRIAN PERRY, City Editor
Article from: Maui News

WAILUKU – The Kaiwahine Village affordable housing project is expected to be resubmitted to the Maui County Council today.

The action follows the council’s rejection of the north Kihei project in December. After elections in November, members of the council’s Public Services Committee voted unanimously to reject the project without getting a presentation from its developers or hearing any information on its merits.

Panel members said there wasn’t enough time late last year to evaluate the project, and members of the new council should have the opportunity to review it.

On Wednesday, John Sindoni, owner and managing partner of developer Royal Main LLC, called the council’s refusal to review the project in December a “debacle,” particularly since the council had been “putting us off” since last summer.

“They wouldn’t even let us speak,” he said. “Members of the new council are raring to go. We’re really looking forward to working with them.”

Now, he said, the administration of Mayor Alan Arakawa has “stepped up” to try to help the project gain approval.

“I feel the administration has really jumped to our rescue,” he said. “We’re looking forward to doing something really wonderful for the affordable housing community.”

The submittal today begins a 45-day period for the council to consider the project, which is being processed as a fast-track development under state law. Projects with more than 50 percent affordable homes can get exemptions to state and county land use and other regulations under state law. Such projects must come before county councils for review.

The council’s Land Use Committee, chaired by Council Member Bob Carroll, already has scheduled a meeting Feb. 16 for members to hear a presentation on the project, according to planning consultant Chris Hart. The deadline for council action would be March 21, he said.

The Kaiwahine project would be similar to existing developments such as Iao Parkside, Kihei Villages and Southpointe in Kihei, he said.

Carroll said he expected the council would take action on the Kaiwahine development before the Arakawa administration submits its budget proposal in mid-March.

Within the 45-day time frame, the council can approve, disapprove or approve the project with conditions, he said. If the council doesn’t act in time, the project would be approved as submitted.

Carroll said Wednesday that he had been briefed “for a few minutes” on the project by the developer and by officials in the county’s Department of Housing and Human Concerns.

While Carroll said he knows broadly about the project, he had yet to receive detailed information.

“I don’t have a lot of background on it,” he said.

Sindoni said he’s aware that neighbors in the Hale Piilani Subdivision have concerns about traffic congestion.

Developers have worked on a couple of solutions aimed at getting motorists to avoid using the narrow Hale Kai Street and travel instead down Kaiwahine Street, a wider collector road more capable of handling higher volumes of traffic, he said.

The project aims to be a good neighbor, Sindoni said.

“We want to make it work for everybody,” he said.

Hart said the project’s primary vehicle access would be off of Kaiwahine Street.

Traffic mitigation plans include developing a roundabout in which the intersection of Hale Kai and Kaiwahine streets would be redesigned to allow traffic going toward the development to come from Hale Kai but to depart only via Kaiwahine.

Hart said the project also would bring some improvements to domestic water transmission, upgrading water pressure for the area.

The Kaiwahine Village is planned as a 120-unit multifamily project with a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom units in 15 buildings on 9.3 acres. Unit prices are expected to range from $185,000 for a one-bedroom unit to $245,000 for three bedrooms, Sindoni said.

Plans also call for building landscaped walkways to nearby Hale Piilani Park, which would be improved at the developer’s expense with better irrigation and the planting of new grass and shade trees, he said.

An irrigation well would be drilled to provide water for all landscaped areas, including the park, he said.

Sindoni said his company bought the project property from Nitto International nearly six years ago.