The Hawaii House of Representatives approved a bill Tuesday that will help generate thousands of jobs by authorizing the spending of more than $602 million to build car rental facilities and make road improvements at the Honolulu International and Kahului airports.
Senate Bill 2946, introduced by Sen. David Ige, D-Pacific Palisades-Pearl City-Waimalu, authorizes the state to spend $347.1 million for Honolulu International Airport — including $43 million for an interim rental car facility — and $255 million for Kahului. The bill calls for the state to sell $500 million in bonds and extend an increase in the rental vehicle surcharge tax of $7.50 per day until June 30, 2013, to pay for the work. About $4.50 of each car rental surcharge would go to the state’s general fund to help finance the projects.
The Senate previously had approved a version of this bill.
One local builder called the work “the kind of project the contractors around town are waiting for.”
But Mainland companies also are likely to be interested in the work because the markets in California and Arizona are slow right now, said Lance Wilhelm, senior vice president of Kiewit Building Group. He compared the facilities, which will put car rental companies in the same building, to similar set ups at San Francisco International Airport and elsewhere. Kiewit is looking at bidding on such a facility in San Diego as well.
“It’s going to take a while for this to go online. This is not going to be something that bids next week,” Wilhelm said. “Their rental car facilities [at the airports] are pretty antiquated.”
Currently, rental car agencies at Honolulu International have desks in the terminals and separate buildings near the parking garage.
According to estimates by the Pacific Resource Partnership, the work in Honolulu will generate 6,559 jobs between 2012 and 2016 and another 2,954 for Kahului between 2012 and 2014.
Ige, who chairs the Senate’s Ways and Means Committee, said the rental car companies came up with the idea of being all in the same facility based on how it has worked elsewhere. The state decided it will issue bonds with the goal of using the increased tax to pay back that money in order expedite the projects, he added.
“It is an important part of our financial plan [for airports], and it ends up being a win-win for all involved,” Ige said.
Bidding on the Honolulu work could be soon, and the goal is to do the same with Kahului by the end of the year.
“The new consolidated car rental facilities will be able to accommodate all eight companies [at each airport] and provide a facility that will accommodate future growth,” Dan Meisenzahl, a spokesman for the Hawaii Department of Transportation, said in an email. “It will also increase the airports’ revenues.”
Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s office could not immediately be reached for comment.
