Project developer American Campus Communities today said it has started building the $71 million student housing complex with 810 beds.

Designed with mostly private bedrooms, the two 12-story towers are expected to open for the Fall 2008 school year.

The project will be UH-Manoa's first student housing built since the late 1970s and is the initial phase of a plan to increase on-campus housing by 1,700 beds by 2014 and provide 25 percent of students with the opportunity to live on campus.

The dorms replace an old Frear Hall that was built in 1952, closed in 1997 for safety reasons and demolished earlier this year.

"Our investment today will pay off in students who are more engaged in their educational experience in the years ahead," UH-Manoa Chancellor Denise Konan said in a statement.

The new Frear Hall is being funded with $25 million in state general obligation bonds approved by the 2005 Legislature, and up to $46 million from a $100 million revenue bond issuance that the Legislature approved for university housing.