Landscape that Fugly Longs

[Bill Walter]

It is always interesting to see what perceptions are. Let me correct a couple of them as they concern Shipman. First, the amendments that recently went through as Bill 194 had nothing to do either directly or indirectly with architectural design. Second and much more importantly, Shipman has a very strong commitment to the design of buildings in Keaau. In the last three years we have spent well into six figures on architectural. Our design architect is Boone Morrison, one of the most highly regarded of plantation style design architects in the State. These are words, but I suggest you look at the works. We had Keaau Village Market designed and built to a plantation standard. We have renovated three houses along Keaau-Pahoa Road in recent years to maintain the plantation era look. The most recent of these is the green house just completed along the road between the village and Keaau Elementary School. We have just removed the last of the plantation houses that could not be rebuilt. We now have building permits and a contract to build two houses to take the place of the two we regrettably had to tear down. Both houses are pier and post and have a strong plantation look. (Building slab houses would have been quite a bit less expensive) We are in the midst of building a new restaurant next to McDonald's in the village. It again is designed to look like the old village. We neither sell nor lease any land in the village without putting architectural requirements in as a part of the package. In fact, we have turned down significant projects simply over design. Have some buildings gotten past us over the years - yes. Of particular note are the police and fire stations and Keaau Plaza. We cannot "fix" the first two but now that we own Keaau Plaza we will have it reconfigured in the next several years to conform to our design standards.

Again, do these designs add to the cost - generally yes. But we have put our money where we think it should be as we rebuild the village. The long term value of a village built to certain standards justifies the cost to us.

Bill Walter