Keith Cos. Is Awarded Contract on Iniki Permits

Keith Cos., a civil engineering, planning and construction management concern, said Friday that it has won a $5.6-million contract to manage the Office of Emergency Permitting to help expedite the rebuilding of Kauai in the wake of Hurricane Iniki.

Funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the OEP is expected to handle permits for and inspection of more than 5,000 residential units and 1,000 commercial properties.

The typical permit process in Hawaii can take from six weeks to more than a year for a large project, said Steve Butz, president of Keith Cos. Hawaii Inc. “The OEP will process them in one to 21 days.”

Since the hurricane struck on Sept. 11, Butz said, his home on Kauai had been without electrical power until this week.

The idea for the OEP grew out of the emergency management agency’s experience in other disasters, most notably Florida’s hurricane and the San Francisco-Santa Cruz earthquakes.

Officials from Kauai and the emergency agency met with representatives of other communities that had been destroyed to find out the best way to proceed.

The OEP will also help ensure that new construction will be better able to withstand future hurricanes, Butz said.

Keith Cos., based in Costa Mesa, has 400 employees at offices in Orange County and in Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii. The Hawaiian operation expects to hire about 60 people for the project, more than tripling its staff there. The OEP contract is its largest to date, the company said.

“We’re basically helping reconstruct an entire island,” said Larry Mandell, the company’s vice president.