Getting Involved Just Got Easier: Hawai‘i Rep. Hanabusa’s Office is Now Downtown

Colleen Hanabusa finds a cheaper, more accessible office.

March 13, 2017

Robbie Dingeman,

Photo: Courtesy of Colleen Hanabusa

Going to visit Hawai‘i Rep. Colleen Hanabusa got a little easier for some recently when her Honolulu office moved out of the Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana‘ole Federal Building and into a downtown office building.

When she was re-elected in November, the General Services Administration—which acts as the landlord for government officials—informed her that the previous office required months of renovations, which included cleaning air-conditioning ducts, perhaps for the first time in the building’s 40-year history, she says.

Not only that, the federal building has lacked public parking for years and became increasingly inhospitable after terrorist attacks on the Mainland.

Her staff learned they could move. “We always thought we had to stay there,” she says. “Apparently, 80 percent of district offices are not in federal government buildings.”

They found a Bishop Place office on the bus lines, with parking, near other parking lots that can provide the required secure entry with a base rent of $5,300 a month, a savings of $1,300 a month from the $7,000 charged at the federal building. “We save a lot of money,” Hanabusa says, but more importantly, “people can have easier access to us.”

The new next-door neighbors? The Honolulu offices of AARP, which could work out well for retirees.

Bishop Place, 1132 Bishop St., Suite 1910, 541-2570, hanabusa.house.gov