Replacing Aloha Stadium has advanced a step closer to initiation, but the new facility is now slated to be smaller and completed later than previously planned.

A state board overseeing the long-envisioned project voted unanimously Wednesday to initiate a ground lease and an agreement for Aloha Halawa Development Partners to develop and operate a new stadium.

But the positive news that allows AHDP, a private partnership led by local developer Stanford Carr, to begin demolishing the old stadium by the end of August was tempered by pushing back the projected completion date of a new stadium to March 2029 from fall of 2028.

“It has to do with the logistics of construction,” said Brennon Morioka, former stadium authority chair, who is also dean of the University of Hawaii at Manoa College of

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