Honolulu Business News

Up to date business news from Pacific Business News of Honolulu

• New Honolulu parking meters will be powered by the sun May 22, 2012
  The City and County of Honolulu will launch a pilot project next month to replace its coin-operated parking meters with solar-powered meters that take credit cards. Motorists who use the new meters also will be able to add more time via their mobile phones, the city said in a statement Monday. “These new meters will provide more payment options for the convenience of drivers, while still retaining the coin-payment capabilities of traditional meters,” Mayor Peter Carlisle said in a statement....
• D.R. Horton to ask Hawaii LUC for more time for Hoopili project May 22, 2012
  D.R. Horton — Schuler Homes LLC will ask the Hawaii Land Use Commission for more time on its Hoopili project case. The LUC is expected to make a decision on Tuesday on the planned 11,750-home subdivision on 1,554 acres of land in Ewa. D.R. Horton is asking for approval to change the classification of prime agricultural land to urban. But according to Cameron Nekota, vice president for D.R. Horton’s Hawaii Schuler Division, the developer will ask for three more weeks so it can draft more legal...
• 'Hawaii Five-0' season two locations - Slideshow May 22, 2012
  CBS aired the last episode of the second season of “Hawaii Five-0” last week, and PBN took a look at some of the locations around Honolulu where the show was shot. Often the PBN staff can spot where the show was filmed, such as series star Alex O’Loughlin running across the street near the popular Honolulu restaurant Indigo, or the time guest star Ed Asner was involved in a shootout at the Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant at Aloha Tower Marketplace, or when Scott Caan teamed up with LL Cool...
• Element Environmental wins $20M site-restoration contract May 22, 2012
  Element Environmental LLC was recently awarded a three-year, $20 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity multiple-award contract for the long-term monitoring and management of environmental restoration sites in Hawaii and Guam and other locations throughout the Pacific. The Aiea-based company also will perform work at sites on the Superfund national priorities list under the contract with the Navy Facilities Engineering Command Pacific, the company said in a statement.
• Business plan competition gives Kauai agriculture a boost May 22, 2012
  Agriculture is alive and well on the Garden Isle. Initiatives such as the Kauai Coffee Agricultural Business Plan Competition are helping to stimulate this age-old sector by building diversified, healthy and profitable agri-businesses. The Kauai Economic Development Board and its Food & Agriculture Committee will announce the winners next Thursday for prizes ranging from $5,000 to $20,000. The purpose of the competition is to bring together and provide the best possible resources, including education...
• Hawaii beaches score high in news magazine’s rankings May 22, 2012
  Hawaii’s Neighbor Islands fared well in a new ranking of summer vacation destinations by U.S. News and World Report. The Big Island and Maui were ranked No. 1 and No. 2 for “Best Beaches in the USA,” while Kauai and the Big Island came in at No. 2 and No. 3 on the list of “Most Relaxing Beaches” behind No. 1 British Virgin Islands. Maui also made the list, No. 2, for “Family Beach Vacations in the USA.” The U.S. News Best Vacations rankings identify top vacation spots based on a methodology...
• Hawaii tourism charity walk feeds its participants well May 21, 2012
  Leave it to Hawaii’s visitor industry to create a charity walkathon with chocolate chip cookie checkpoints. Several times when I was a kid growing up in Southern California my family dragged me out of bed before sunrise on Thanksgiving morning to do a 10k Turkey Trot run-walk event, and it was a tortuous experience. Despite the substantial entry fee, there were no pumpkin pie checkpoints – just a bottle of water at the finish line and a souvenir T-shirt with an enormous turkey emblem on the...
• Pearl Harbor focus turns from ‘Battleship’ to Arizona Memorial’s 50th anniversary May 21, 2012
  The Aloha State is getting a lot of publicity lately with aliens causing havoc on Oahu in the movie “Battleship” — even if it did shoot blanks at the box office this past weekend, based on ticket sales. And now former CBS News anchor Dan Rather has descended on Pearl Harbor for a documentary that coincides with next week’s 50th anniversary of the USS Arizona Memorial, which is part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument. The documentary airs Tuesday on HDNet, but HDNet...
• Hu Honua Bioenergy will sell biomass power to HELCO May 21, 2012
  Hawaii Electric Light Co. signed a power purchase agreement on Monday for Hu Honua Bioenergy to provide 21.5 megawatts of power generated by its Big Island biomass plant at the former Pepeekeo Sugar Mill. The 20-year agreement, which must be approved by the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission, calls for Hu Honua to sell the electricity to HELCO, a subsidiary of Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. (NYSE: HE), at “pricing not tied to the price of oil,” HELCO said in a statement. The exact pricing...
• Here’s what happens next in PBN’s Social Madness challenge May 21, 2012
  It has been nearly a week since the nominations for Pacific Business News’ Social Madness social media challenge closed, and still another week before the actual competition begins. Some of you may be wondering, “Now what?” PBN’s corporate parent, American City Business Journals, is reviewing and approving the nominations and will contact companies by early next week, before the first phase of the competition kicks off on June 1. To be approved, companies must meet all of the Social Madness...