A state agency is floating an idea to fill in two areas of Honolulu Harbor near Aloha Tower to create new waterfront land for development tied to a nearby transit station planned by the city.

The idea is part of a draft plan released yesterday by the Aloha Tower Development Corp.

The agency is inviting public comment on the plan, and will consider the feedback in adopting a final plan that guides the agency in its mission to redevelop underused waterfront property from Piers 5 to 14 at Honolulu's main commercial harbor.

"We have a huge potential here," said Sandy Pfund, agency executive director. "We have an opportunity to plan the future of a critical transit component."

The plan has been in gestation for about three months. It comes after nearly seven years of work by Dallas developer Ken Hughes to develop a $300 million retail, residential and hotel project at Piers 5 and 6 unraveled.

Ultimately, a court awarded Hughes $1.6 million in damages for the Aloha Tower Development Corp.'s poor handling of negotiations.

Now the agency is considering filling in of 7.3 acres of harbor between Piers 6 and 8, which includes space on both sides of the pier leased to Bishop Museum's shuttered Hawai'i Maritime Center.

The Falls of Clyde, a 131-year-old historic ship, also is a fixture at the site, though it is supposed to be towed to Kalaeloa Harbor for repairs after the museum last year agreed to give the decaying ship to a community group instead of sinking it.

New land, if created, could be connected to a planned Downtown rail station on the makai side of Bishop Street and Ala Moana, possibly with a pedestrian mall or bridge, according to the draft plan.

Another idea floated by the agency is to relocate Irwin Park, which is carved up with parking spaces, next to the transit stop site.

The agency may ask a charitable foundation that holds covenants to Irwin Park if it would be willing to establish a new park on a piece of waterfront property stretching from Ala Moana to the end of Pier 5 in place of the existing park site, that could then be developed.

Tom Otake, development director for the agency, emphasized that the strategic plan is a draft and has not been endorsed by the agency's board.

Even if community and board support leads to finalizing the plan, feasibility studies that examine cost, engineering and other issues would still need to be completed to determine whether the plan moves forward.

"All this is very conceptual," he said.

Bishop Museum officials could not be reached for comment yesterday. The museum closed the Hawai'i Maritime Center in May.

No comment was available yesterday from the San Francisco-based foundation connected to sugar magnate William Irwin, whose daughter, Helene Irwin Fagan, gave the Irwin Park site to the Territory of Hawai'i in 1930 with restrictions that it be maintained as a park.

Michelle Matson, a descendent of William Irwin's sister, said she opposes relocating Irwin Park, which was dedicated to beautify an area for passenger ship arrivals.

"It is the landscape companion to Aloha Tower," she said. "It's historic."

Matson also called the harbor infill plan a pie-in-the-sky idea, but credited the agency for seeking public input before committing to such an idea.

"They're going to have a long way to go with this," she said.

No specific uses of property included in any transit-oriented development are proposed in the draft plan. Pfund said potential uses range from commercial uses to park space.

More details can be found in the draft plan, which the agency expects to have available on its Web site, www.alohatower.org, by Monday.