For more than a decade, the Waikoloa Village library was a bus. Not a building with a librarian and a reading nook, but an idled state bookmobile that Friends of the Library Waikoloa Region negotiated to take over after budget cuts under former Gov. Linda Lingle ended the Village's regular stop on the state's traveling route. The Waikoloa Village Association gave up half of one of its tennis courts to park it and wired in electricity so it could run seven days a week. That bookmobile was, for years, the closest thing this community had to a public library.
This spring, the wait for something more permanent finally ended. Understanding why it took so long, and what else in the Village has followed the same pattern, tells you something about how this community actually grows.
Fifteen Years On Half A Tennis Court
In April, Gov. Josh Green released $21 million in state funding to move a long-planned Waikoloa public library into its final phases of planning, design, and construction. The building is going up on 2.6 acres on Kamakoa Drive, designed by architect Glenn Miura of CDS International in Honolulu. When it opens, residents will have:
- About 12,000 square feet of space
- Shelving capacity for at least 50,000 books
- 71 parking stalls
- Rooms built for community meetings and educational programming
Cindy Evans, a Friends of the Library Waikoloa Region board member and former state representative and county council member, has worked on this project for fifteen or sixteen years. As she told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser when the funding came through:
It takes a community voice, a strong voice, a focused and consistent voice, because it's a long, long process.
State Rep. David Tarnas, who represents the Kohala district, and Sen. Tim Richards both pushed for the funding release. State Librarian Stacey Aldrich called the future building a community hub. None of that changes the fact that it took a decade and a half, a bookmobile, and half a tennis court to get here.
The Only Branch Without A Building
Waikoloa Village counted 7,104 residents in the 2020 U.S. Census, and by Evans' account it has been one of the largest population centers statewide without a permanent public library facility. She has described it as the only branch of Friends of the Library statewide that never had a building of its own. Communities smaller than this one have had library buildings for years. Waikoloa Village had a parked bus with an extension cord.
That gap between population and public infrastructure did not just show up in the library conversation. It shows up in how residents get their groceries too.
The Food Gap Filled Itself In First
Waikōloa Grows is a community nonprofit built around a simple observation: the Village has been adding hundreds of new workforce and housing units, and its access to affordable, fresh food has not kept pace. By the nonprofit's own description, the community has depended primarily on a single higher-priced grocery option for years. In response, Waikōloa Grows runs a weekly Farmstand, a CSA program, and the monthly Waikōloa Community Market, with programming aimed in part at ALICE households, meaning families who are asset limited, income constrained, and employed but still stretched thin.
This is the same pattern as the bookmobile. Before an institution arrived to fix the gap, residents built their own version of the fix and kept running it.
What's Actually Open At The Plaza Right Now
Waikoloa Plaza opened its doors in 2023 at 68-1820 Waikoloa Road, about five miles inland from the coast, just east of Queen Kaahumanu Highway. From the start, Ace Hardware and a Foodland supermarket were announced as the project's two anchor tenants, and Foodland's own tenant page now lists the store as part of the center. That matters more than it might sound. The Village's longtime KTA has been the default grocery stop for years. With Foodland anchoring the Plaza alongside Ace Hardware, residents have a second full-size grocery option close to home for the first time.
Beyond the anchors, the Plaza's own directory shows a mix of what has actually opened and what is still labeled to be announced. Currently operating: Eyecare Waikoloa, Fitness Forever, Island Holistic Healing, Manta Dental, MH Nail Salon, and an Aloha Petroleum station. SmashDaddy's 808, a hand-smashed burger spot, has been open since early 2025. Still listed with no confirmed date: Churrascaria 808 Brazilian Steakhouse, Icy Bubble, and Selfie Café. A Goodwill Hawaii store and donation center is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the same center.
Two hotels are also planned for the site: a Candlewood Suites, which would be the brand's first Hawaii location, and a Holiday Inn Express, the third on Hawaii Island. Meridian Pacific President Gary Pinkston framed the reasoning plainly when the project was announced, noting that most Kohala Coast hotel rooms run $800 to $2,000 a night, and these would be priced closer to $300 to $400. That is a different customer than the resort corridor typically serves, and it says something about who is expected to keep visiting this part of the island.
The Amenities That Never Waited
Set the fifteen-year library timeline next to what the Waikōloa Village Association has built on its own schedule and the contrast is sharp. The Aquatic Center opened in 2020 with six swim lanes, three of them partitioned for daily 25-yard lap swimming, plus a keiki pool with 3D-cast ocean creatures and water kept above 80 degrees year-round. The golf course was designed by Robert Trent Jones II, whose family firm has worked on more than 500 championship courses worldwide. The Stables, a 25-acre historic landmark designed by Vladimir Ossipoff, once hosted the Great Waikōloa Horse Races and Rodeo, drawing cowboys from across the country to compete. Two tennis and pickleball courts round out the amenity list, along with rentable event rooms.
None of that took fifteen years, because none of it depended on the state legislature. The WVA manages amenities, covenants, and development for 3,037 residential units, funded by member dues rather than public budgets. Worth remembering too: the roads and parks inside the Village are owned by Hawaii County, not the association, so a pothole complaint goes to county highway maintenance, not the golf pro shop. Two separate systems, moving at two separate speeds, inside the same community.
The First Saturday Habit That Isn't Going Anywhere
Every first Saturday of the month, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., the Waikōloa Community Market sets up at the Stables on Waikoloa Road, right next to the Dusty Donkey Thrift. Vendors bring produce, baked goods, artisan foods, crafts, and plants, and a community tent runs rotating chef demonstrations and keiki activities alongside it.
Foodland opening at the Plaza does not replace this. Neither will the new library replace the fact that Friends of the Library Waikoloa Region spent over a decade running a bookmobile out of a tennis court. These things run in parallel because the market, the CSA, and the bookmobile were never just placeholders. They became part of how the Village actually functions, and they are still on the calendar.
That is the real pattern here. Waikoloa Village grows by residents building a version of what they need first, then keeping it running even after something more permanent shows up. The library breaking ground and Foodland anchoring the Plaza are not the end of that story. They are just the moments when the formal version finally caught up to what the community had already figured out how to do for itself.
If you are already living the day-to-day of Waikoloa Village and want to swap notes on what's opening next, the team at Aloha Kona Realty lives and works this stretch of the island and is always happy to talk story.
