ENVIRONMENT / DEBATE OVER LANDMARK : Filmmakers Seen as Threat to Diamond Head

For many visitors, Diamond Head defines Hawaii. The volcano’s rugged profile, jutting skyward at the edge of Waikiki, is their first and most lasting impression of Honolulu.

Residents, too, rely on the looming landmark. No one here says: “Go east two blocks.” Instead, it’s, “Go two blocks Diamond Head.”

Over the years, one developer after another has cast a covetous eye toward the crater, only to be beaten back.

“I wish I had a photo of Diamond Head and all the things that people have wanted to build there,” sighed Betty Crocker, president of the Outdoor Circle, a nonprofit environmental group. “You wouldn’t even see Diamond Head through it all.”

NEW THREAT?: Today, Crocker and others see a new threat to the extinct volcano: the state’s plans to renovate and expand a termite-ridden film studio at its base.

Never mind that the studio has been there for more than a decade. And never mind that it’s on the “back side” of the volcano, next to a community college and the Hawaii National Guard armory.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Crocker said. “Diamond Head is our greatest landmark. It’s known worldwide. The film studio doesn’t belong there.”

The state-owned studio is housed in ramshackle wooden cottages and a metal warehouse on the lower slopes of the crater. The buildings , shaded by mesquite trees, were taken over in 1976 for the filming of the television series “Hawaii Five-0” and later became the home of “Magnum, P.I.” and “Jake and the Fat Man.”

All these years, the studio has been considered “temporary.” Producers and actors have had to put up with erratic electricity, sagging walls, leaky roofs and inadequate plumbing.

But now that Hawaii has shown such lasting appeal as the backdrop for national television shows, the state has decided it needs a permanent studio.

INSPIRED BY SUCCESS: Boosted by two TV series, “Jake” and “Island Son,” and the production of movies like “Joe vs. the Volcano,” filmmakers spent a record $62 million in Hawaii last year. To prime that pump, the state has set aside $7 million to build the new studio.

For filmmakers, being in the shadow of the crater is both quiet and convenient. The 7.5-acre lot has little traffic or airplane overflights. It is close to Waikiki hotels, shopping and services. And it lies in the midst of what producers call “photographable Hawaii,” a stretch of coconut-clad beaches on Honolulu’s eastern shore.

Bruce Shurley, production manager for “Jake,” and, before that, for “Magnum,” said that the Diamond Head site is the only economical option. Filming in Hawaii is expensive, and every minute in travel time to the studio hurts the bottom line.

“If you’re for the film industry, then you’re for the Diamond Head studio,” Shurley said. “If it’s not there, there is no film industry here.”

Others disagree. Opposing the studio site are the Outdoor Circle, a respected group that led the fight to ban billboards in Hawaii, and some residents’ associations.

The studio, opponents say, will commercialize a national landmark, far exceed a 25-foot height limit for buildings near Diamond Head and crowd the neighborhood with traffic.

“No matter how you slice it, it’s an industrial use, and this is not an industrial area,” said Jack Larsen, president of the East Diamond Head Assn. “It’s not turning coal into steel, certainly, but those huge sound stages and all these trucks and equipment have got to be called industrial.”

Also against the studio are some individuals at neighboring Kapiolani Community College, which had eyed the site for its own expansion. “We’re not against the film industry,” said Tony Villasenor, chairman of the Student Congress. “ . . . We just think there are more appropriate sites.”

RESIDENTS POLLED: But a poll taken for the state last year found that nearly 54% of area residents supported the studio, with 22% against it. Since then, the state has conducted an intense lobbying campaign. Celebrities, including actor Tom Selleck, who owns a Diamond Head home, have turned up to testify for the project.

The lobbying effort, designed to gather support before the state seeks two special permits from the city this summer, has won some converts. Two neighborhood boards that had opposed the studio last year reversed their stands this year, both by one-vote margins.

Vernon Tam, a member of the Kaimuki Neighborhood Board, supports the studio as an environmentally sensitive alternative to tourism.

“I would be against anything on the actual slopes of Diamond Head,” he said. “The landmark has to be protected. But its real beauty comes from seeing it from afar, and we’ve tried to preserve that.”