Ala Moana Center Ewa Expansion Project

The world famous Ala Moana Center, went through an almost $1 billion expansion in 2015, and Kelikai was a key team member in getting that project completed. Working as a subcontractor to Hawaiian Dredging, we installed over 200 cased micro-piles as a deep foundation system for the new Ewa wing. While the structure would mainly rest on the newly installed augercast piles, due to the large size of the ACIP rig, micro-piles were designed to help support the perimeter foundation locations.

Over 200 5.5” diameter cased micro-piles were installed fifty to sixty feet in depth, down to the coral bearing material. These piles were installed along the Piikoi ramp, along the Old Navy perimeter wall, as well as underneath the new Mauka parking structure. The project specification required a pre-production compression test on a sacrificial pile (ASTM D1143), in test the strength and stability of the coral shelf below. While the needed 2 to 1 safety factor only required us to test the pile to a 160 kip load, we continued to load the pile to 240 kips, until we the test frame began to bend and we terminated the test. The pile was actually still holding strong at the 240 kip load.