New building at UH-Hilo fulfills expansion plans

Advertiser Staff

HILO, Hawai'i — A newly dedicated $19 million classroom building has become a landmark on the University of Hawai'i-Hilo campus.

The three-story facility is at the college's main entrance on Kawili Street and is the first new major building on campus in 20 years.

Jack Whittaker, vice chancellor for administrative affairs, said the 85,000-square-foot building will provide much-needed space for UH-Hilo expansion plans.

"We were literally bursting at the seams," he said. "There was a serious need for more classroom and office space, and this building goes a long way toward easing those growing pains."

The new building, for now called the University Classroom Building, has a 150-seat, tiered lecture hall; six multimedia, tiered classrooms equipped with distance-education facilities; seven special classroom/teaching labs; five computer/electronic classrooms; and more than 60 offices, conference rooms and support facilities.

Among the offices there are the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Social Sciences Division, and the education, history, nursing, political science, psychology and sociology departments.

Political science professor Rick Castberg said a mock courtroom provides an ideal setting for law-related classes and his department's model United Nations class. Facilities for the nursing-degree program include four rooms providing practice environments for acute care, intensive care, doctor's offices and home care.

The building was designed by Kajioka, Yamachi Architects and constructed by Dick Pacific Construction Co.