SUNSET BEACH — A skateboard park that was years in the making has not officially been opened even though the main work was completed in 2007.

And the city says it's going to be nearly another year before it opens and three more years until amenities such as lights, restrooms and water are installed.

Skaters have been using the facility anyway, but in doing so, they're trespassing.

Even before the latest snag, Banzai Rock Skateboard Park had been plagued by years of delays and $100,000 in cost overruns to the original $587,760 contract. A July 2008 city audit blamed the city Department of Design and Construction for the problems, but the department said events beyond its control, and the contractor, contributed to the extra cost and delays.

First budgeted in fiscal year 1999-2000, the park project has suffered a string of setbacks, including losing its funding twice, delays due to soil problems and an access issue that held up the permit for two years.

DOWNSIZED

Skaters and others in the area had dreamed about a skateboard park in the area for decades. Banzai was intended to be a premiere skatepark: big, with features created by the nation's best designers, Dreamland Skate-parks.

In the end, the planned 11,000-square-foot facility was downsized to 7,500 square feet.

Today, the concrete structure is surrounded by tall weeds and accessed by a rutted dirt road. Its walls are covered with graffiti, and a chainlink fence designed to keep people out has been rendered useless.

"I waited 30 years, and it's disappointing," said Chris Takayama, a 48-year-old skateboarder. "It's lacking in design, and all of (the features) are substandard."

To officially open the park, the Department of Design and Construction said, grass must be installed around the skating facility and a gravel pathway built.

The department said it is preparing to open the park, but not until June 2010 when that work will be done.

Then, in 2012, Phase 2 of the project will be implemented. That will include a parking lot, accessible paths, access driveway and landscaping, said Bill Brennan, city spokesman.

When Mayor Mufi Hannemann came into office, he looked at all the pending city projects and decided this was one that he wanted to finish, Brennan said.

"It's unfortunate that it's taken as long a time as it has, but it's still on our radar," Brennan said. "It's nothing we walked away from by any stretch of the imagination."

FUNDING DENIED

City Councilman Donovan Dela Cruz had tried to put money in the budget to finish the project for the last two years, but it was denied during the budget process, said Reed Matsuura, an aide to Dela Cruz and a North Shore Neighborhood Board member. Amenities such as parking and restrooms would also serve the beach park across the street, where lifeguards are stationed, Matsuura said.

Promises were made, but two years after completion, nothing has been done, frustrating the community, which has just about given up, he said.

"It's the administration," Matsuura said. "It's their call, how much they want to push it."

The city audit faulted the Department of Design and Construction's management of the project, saying that it incurred $100,789 in change orders and was delayed about 17 months after construction began.

The audit said the project was contracted out at $587,760.

A design-build team was hired to allow for more creativity but "DDC did not include sufficiently detailed project description within its (request for proposals) for Banzai Skateboard Park, nor did it include a deadline for the project's design phase," the audit said.

The audit also found that "DDC's poor planning of the Banzai Skateboard Park as a stand-alone facility on undeveloped land contributed to project delays, additional costs and the completion of a skateboard park without essential support facilities."

Eugene Lee, then DDC director, disputed many of the audit's findings. In a rebuttal letter to the audit, Lee blamed the delays and cost overruns in part on the lengthy process of reviews and approvals "and the discovery of poor soil under the originally planned location of the skate facility."

The permit was delayed for two years, from 2003 to 2005, while the contractor tried to get construction access issues resolved.

It took more than a year to complete the site work for the project, and construction of the skatepark features began in about May 2007.

MORE DELAYS

Poor soil conditions added to the delays, as did an attempt to appease community members who protested when they saw the contractor building something smaller than promised and learned that Dreamland Skateparks was no longer on the team.

The community even tried to pay the extra cost to rehire Dreamland — $60,000 — but because the work had begun and the project would require reworking, the real cost to the community would have been $426,000, which was beyond what the community could muster, the audit said.

Kirk Murakami, 46, said the city paid to fix a feature that skateboarders claimed was nonfunctional. A square bowl was turned into a rounded swimming pool, said Murakami, a lifelong skateboarder who led the protesters in demanding the city build the original design.

Murakami said the city was shortsighted and should have pushed the contractor to stay with the original plan.

"I saw it as a missed opportunity for Hawai'i, for the North Shore," he said. "It could have been a world-class park, because they had the best skatepark builders in the world as part of the project."

About a half-dozen skateboarders were there Wednesday afternoon and said the park, while usable, would be much better if it had water and lights, so people could use it at night when it is cooler. A restroom would be a big plus, Takayama said.

The site has room for expansion, and some skateboarders are adding more ramps, said Jesse Bielmann, 15.

"People are just trying to make it better," Bielmann said.

The graffiti isn't welcomed, but the users all agree the city shouldn't paint over the tags because they make the surface smoother.

"It gets super slippery," said Jay Alvarez, 14. "If they get painted over, there's more of a chance that you'll get hurt."

Overall, the skateboarders said, they're glad to have something rather than nothing, but they are all bummed about the lost opportunity to build something great, they said.

"It's the best one on the island, but it sucks in comparison to how it's supposed to be," said Bryan Williams, 21.