Posted on: Friday, February 18, 2005
UH seeks developer for lab in Kaka'ako
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
The University of Hawai'i launched the next phase of its new medical school complex in Kaka'ako yesterday by clearing the way to find a developer for another research laboratory.
The laboratory project is expected to cost $75 million to $90 million. The approximately 2.5-acre site is makai of the medical school's education building, fronting Waterfront Park.
The development will continue the growing high-tech urbanization of Honolulu's waterfront.
The UH Board of Regents gave capital improvements director Jan Yokota permission to ask for qualifications of developers interested in the research laboratory building with leasable space for private biotech firms.
The project is in addition to the $150 million already spent on the new John A. Burns School of Medicine. Yokota said more exact figures will be available next month when a more formal proposal goes out to developers.
In a day-long meeting that covered a wide range of topics, regents also:
Regents received assurances from Englert and Interim UH President David McClain that community colleges and the two smaller four-year campuses would continue to receive certain services that traditionally have been housed at Manoa and doled out to the rest of the system.
Doris Ching, longtime head of student affairs at Manoa, argued against the reorganization because of concerns it would leave 30,000 students in community colleges essentially out of the loop of services provided by sectors of the Manoa campus.
McClain gave regents repeated assurances that would not happen.
"I'm confident Manoa will have an attitude of reaching out and being less territorial than it has been and being supportive of other campuses," he said.
In returning to discussion of Phase II of the new medical school, Yokota said the university is hoping that income from the leasable space would help meet some of the construction and operational costs of the building.
The university also is in the final phases of choosing a developer for a new Cancer Research Center of Hawai'i as part of the overall wellness project in Kaka'ako. The cancer site is 5.5 acres 'ewa of the new medical school buildings. Yokota said she expects a developer for the cancer center to be chosen by the end of March.
That project, like two others also under way at UH, will be a public/private partnership with funding supplied by the developer. One of the public/private partnerships will reconstruct or renovate three of the oldest dorms on the Manoa campus.
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
