Med school moves toward reality

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

Groundbreaking for a new University of Hawai'i medical school in Kaka'ako yesterday was nothing short of miraculous.

The Rev. David Kaupu of Kaumakapili Church blesses the ground for the new UH medical school in Kaka'ako. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

But yesterday, as 500 people gathered in Kaka'ako to bless and break ground for the new $150 million John A. Burns School of Medicine, that was history.

With rain sweeping in off the ocean, a lineup of dignitaries called this a triumphant and historic day for Hawai'i.

Cayetano said the structures that will rise in the next three years on 9.1 acres of state land next to the Kaka'ako Waterfront Park will be "a biomedical and health research center for the Pacific, and for the world."

Along with bringing revitalization to the state's economy and creating new high-skill biotech jobs for its people, Cayetano said the complex will also provide the medical research to help heal not just Hawai'i's people but those in the developing countries of Asia.

This investment in education is especially significant to Native Hawaiians, said Hamilton McCubbin, chief executive officer of Kamehameha Schools. One arm of the new medical school will be devoted specifically to improve Native Hawaiian health, rated among the poorest in the nation.

As it emerges between the Gold Bond Building and Kaka'ako Waterfront Park, the medical school will reshape the face of Kaka'ako, vaulting it into prominence as a new urban Honolulu neighborhood with the potential of jobs, housing and entertainment all in the same vicinity.

UH President Evan Dobelle envisions 600 to 700 new construction jobs during the three years of building, and potentially 1,000 or more new jobs as a biotech industry develops. Manoa chancellor Peter Englert sees it as a good example "that UH is a critical element in the future well-being of our state."

Neighboring landowners, including Kamehameha Schools, have visions of using some of their holdings to help create "incubators" for new med-school-inspired businesses that will be spun off from research, or housing projects to accommodate a new work force. Dr. David A. Kessler, dean of the Yale University School of Medicine, who spoke here this week, said med-school faculty at Yale spin off three new companies a year.

"Faculty at medical schools are not cost centers," Kessler told Hawai'i leaders. "They are profit centers." Yale pulls in $267 million annually in federal research money alone, he added.

That same potential of millions of new dollars in federal research money will also happen here.

"This is an opportunity to capitalize on discoveries that we'll make ... and form the foundation for a biotech industry," said Medical School Dean Edwin Cadman. "This is about nurturing a new industry to diversify our economy."

Cadman has already shepherded a new era in research financing at the existing obsolete medical school on the UH-Manoa campus, with grants amounting to about $60 million a year. But yesterday he said the new school, with its additional research space, could push that as high as $100 million annually.

It was Cadman's presence as dean, beginning in late 1999, that turned things around. Operating under an admonition from Cayetano that eliminating a medical school at UH was "politically unacceptable," Mortimer, along with Cadman, went looking for a site to expand beyond Manoa's confines. It was they who first eyed the Kaka'ako acreage.

But it was under Dobelle that action accelerated. In a little more than a year, his administration convinced the Legislature that a new medical school could coalesce the economy, bringing revitalization, jobs and new federal money.

In a special session last summer, lawmakers voted to approve $150 million in bonds for the new school, backed by money from the tobacco settlement. Since then there's been a headlong rush to pick a contractor, offer the bonds for sale and break ground.

Yesterday, legislative leaders praised the university's momentum, with Senate President Robert Bunda saying that the new school was "a giant step" closer to plans for a thriving urban center near the waterfront. Bunda said it should "provide the catalyst to jump-start" redevelopment in the area.

The only stumbling block has been a location for the proposed new Cancer Research Center of Hawai'i. The first suggestions were to put an expanded cancer center next to the new med school, but the site isn't large enough to accommodate parking needed.

That issue still hasn't been resolved, but a committee of university and O'ahu hospital officials is looking at options so that all parts of the community can be served.

There's yet another reason yesterday's groundbreaking was a breakthrough; this is the first time the university has been able to flex its new autonomy muscles. In doing so, a selection committee picked Hawaiian Dredging as the contractor, in partnership with Kajima Joint Venture, a firm out of Englewood Cliffs, N.J.

This has also been the first time the university sold bonds under its own steam, earning a "solid" rating from three of the country's top bond raters, Fitch, Standard & Poor's and Moody's. The bonds sold in four hours.

With the groundbreaking ceremony now complete, the contractor has also pledged to avoid the cost overruns that have plagued past state construction projects at UH. Under the design/assist/build process of step-by-step consultation, elements are priced as they progress, with alterations made along the way.