2012-08-02 Windward Transcript Regency

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early nineties. I’m pretty familiar with the health care here in the islands. We have been excited about this project. And this is, we completed this same building in Puyallup, Washington just recently, just a quick shot of what it looks like; another one, very, very similar in Monroe. And so what we do is this is a skilled nursing, 24-hour a day facility, very, very similar to Hale Anuenue across from the hospital. It provides licensed care as well as a, there’s more and more moves toward therapeutic rehab. And so a lot of times when people hear the word “rehab” they think a drug and alcohol rehab or something like that, not the case here. This is a medical rehab. We see both short- and long-term stays. And our goal is really to provide much needed health care to the community. We’ve been through the Certificate of Need Process, which is first and foremost. And that allows us then to know that there is a market and a need. We’ve worked extensively beginning in 2007 with the hospital and with different folks in the health care community, as well as with the State, to make sure that this was a benefit to the community. And that’s our goal. Some elevations which are not very easily seen, but the building is a relatively low profile. We have a lot of experience in putting facilities within residential communities. And so we work to make sure that they blend with the community and aren’t a monolith out there. We understand that people live in their homes and want to be comfortable there. We know, based on our feasibility demand, that there’s a great need for additional health care here in Hilo. And eventually this project could increase in size, but it would be only with the improvements in water systems, in sewage systems, etc. So we view that as quite some time down the road, if at all it occurs. You know, we’re trying to provide increased access to health care here in the community, and as well as the job creation 24 hours a day. So you’re looking at about 150 direct jobs, and then many, many indirect jobs. The facility will start construction as soon as we get approval from you folks. We’ll begin the process, and begin the submission process. We’ve been in design development for some time, working both with the neighbors, with the community, and just trying to get through that initial process. So we’re hoping to open by the last quarter of 2013, first quarter of 2014. Typically once we get through the permitting process, etc., the building itself is a pretty easy thing to do. They’re simple and repetitive, so that makes that part easy. The project, as I said, is on Kaumana Drive. I think everybody has a good sense of where it is at this point. But, again, to just reiterate, the ground falls off a lot right there. So we have about an 80-foot drop from the road to our site location. That should keep everything out of the neighbors view. In terms of the roadway, I'm not an engineer, I have the folks that can work on that. And then the site plan here which you've already seen, I won't bore you with that again. We got our Certificate of Need approval in 2009 and we’re here asking you guys now for approval for the use permit. And we certainly want to work with the community needs, and we've done a lot to work with the neighbors, the neighborhood. And at that point I'm going to turn this over to Sidney who has really done all that for us. So thank you very much. KERN: Thank you. FUKE: Thank you very much. Prior to the submittal of the application, what we did was we conducted a community meeting initially just to get some generalized feedback, you know, from the 6 EXHIBIT B