As The Maui News reported, the gymnasium at 640 Baldwin Avenue has been locked since 2016. A structural engineering report, a termite inspection, and a hazardous materials survey all came back with the same conclusion that year: the building wasn't safe to use. It had stood since 1938, hosting boxing matches, volleyball leagues, and pickup basketball for most of a century, and then it just stopped. For ten years it has sat in the middle of town, a building everyone in Paia has driven past without being able to walk into.
The gym's decade of closure provides context for the county's current proposal. Maui County earmarked $1.5 million in bond funding for "Alfred 'Flako' Boteilho, Sr. Gym Improvements" in 2018, as part of a capital improvement ordinance for the Paia-Haiku Community Plan Area.
What's Actually Being Proposed
According to The Maui News, more than 40 people showed up at the Paia Community Center on September 17 to look at concept drawings for what the county is calling the Alfred "Flako" Boteilho Sr. Gymnasium, named for a longtime member of the community the facility is meant to honor. The plan calls for demolishing the existing structure and building roughly 15,210 square feet of new gym space on the same site.
The feature list reads like an attempt to solve two different problems in one building. For recreation, there's a multiuse gym floor, retractable bleachers, a weight-training room, a stage, and updated locker rooms and restrooms. For emergency response, there's an automatic fire sprinkler system and a backup generator, both explicitly tied to the building's second job as a disaster shelter and recovery center during severe storms and other emergencies.
And then there's the boxing ring. Of everything that could have been dropped from a building this small, the one piece of equipment that ties directly back to the gym's original identity made the cut. The 1938 gym built its reputation on boxing as much as basketball, and the new design keeps that use alive rather than converting every square foot to flexible multi-sport space.
In a Maui Now report, Parks and Recreation Director Patrick McCall framed the project as serving both halves of that mission at once, calling it "a significant investment in the heart of Pāʻia" and saying it would meet "the everyday recreational needs of our keiki, families and residents." In a later Maui Now report, McCall said the proposed facility would strengthen "Pāʻia's emergency preparedness and ability to serve as a safe, reliable gathering place and shelter during severe storms and other emergencies." Nothing in that list is locked. County officials have said the proposed features may still be refined as planning, funding, and approvals continue, so the drawings shown on September 17 remain a working concept that public comment can still shape.
What "Modern Gymnasium" Actually Costs on This Island
No cost estimate exists yet for the Paia project. The county says it will provide one once a preferred design and site layout are chosen. But Maui already built one comparable facility recently, and it's worth looking at for scale.
South Maui Community Park in Kihei opened with a gymnasium that cost nearly $21.4 million and covers 31,858 square feet, with bleacher seating for more than 1,000 people and 170 parking stalls attached to a 19.6-acre park. That's more than double the footprint the county is proposing for Paia, and it makes sense: Kihei's gym sits on a large suburban parcel built for regional draw, with two full-size courts and space to match. Paia's version is being planned for a much tighter in-town lot, on a site that already has the gym, a ballfield, and a community center packed onto it.
The comparison isn't a preview of what Paia will cost. It's a way of understanding what scale the county is actually working at. A 15,210 square foot gym on a historic town lot with a boxing ring and a backup generator is a different kind of project than a 31,858 square foot regional sports complex, and the number itself, once it's set, will make more sense against that backdrop than it would in isolation.
The Window That's Still Open
Here's the part that's genuinely actionable for anyone reading this in Paia right now. The county opened an online comment period on September 18 that runs through October 18, accepting feedback on the conceptual design and site plan at mauicounty.gov/parksplanning. That window is open for about a month total, and it comes after eight years of the project existing mostly as a line item in a county budget rather than something the public could weigh in on.
The meeting's turnout is a real sign of interest in a project that many in town had likely assumed had gone quiet. It suggests there's still an appetite in Paia for getting this specific building back, not a generic replacement somewhere else in town, but the same site, under the same name now attached to it, with the same core uses it always had.
If there's a detail worth watching over the next month, it's whether the boxing ring, the stage, and the disaster-shelter functions all survive into whatever design gets finalized after October 18, or whether budget and site constraints trim the list. The building has already waited a decade. What happens between now and the close of this comment period will decide what it looks like for the next several.
If you're in Paia and want to see how this design firms up, the North Shore neighborhood page is a good place to check back, and Kate and Wendy Peterson at Properties of Maui are always glad to talk story about what's actually changing in town, gym included, whether or not you're in the market for anything at all.
