HAMAKUAPOKO, Maui – The nostalgia for Old Maui High School amid the sugar cane fields cannot be underestimated, The Maui News reported.

After years of effort, there is a cutting-edge plan led by Friends of Old Maui High School to bring the once-decaying buildings and grounds back to life.

Old Maui High School would become a place to develop what organizers call professional and personal sustainability.

The campus would host children's learning programs in organic farming and renewable energy. And much of the new uses for the old school would be paid for through an onsite private adult retreat and conference center.

The school's decline began after Alexander & Baldwin initiated the development of a new residential community in Kahului in 1948, labeled "Dream City." As the Kahului increments expanded across the sand dunes surrounding Kahului Harbor, a new high school of hollow-tile structures was constructed on a 50-acre field.

The last students left the old Hamakuapoko campus in 1971. The passing still reverberates, and its legion of alumni rarely seem to miss an opportunity to mention their affiliations with the school. A three-day-long reunion last September drew more than 1,500 people.

So when Barbara Long presented a "preliminary draft master plan" to the Maui County Cultural Resources Commission last week, it drew broad smiles. Commissioner Perry Artates said he was a proud alumnus.

For several years now, Friends of Old Maui High School has had its eyes on reopening the campus as Patsy T. Mink Education and Training Center, in honor of the late trailblazing U.S. congresswoman and Old Maui High honor graduate.

The Wailuku landscape and planning firm, Chris Hart & Partners Inc., met with Friends of Old Maui High School over a year to formulate the master plan, said project manager Michael Summers.

According to the preliminary master plan, they hope to achieve:

• A Patsy T. Mink Center youth camp to promote leadership, community involvement and environmental ideals, with 30 buildings to provide facilities for various programs.

• A mentor program for young adults and children to teach life and job skills

• A week-long camp could accommodate 120 students, teachers and chaperones

• Recycling or rehabilitation of 12 of the 16 remaining buildings on the site, including restoring the historic administration building, designed by Hawaii architect Charles W. Dickey

• An outdoor amphitheater and pavilion as well as cottages for teachers and caregivers

• New and remodeled classrooms, workshops, a library, computer research center and athletic fields, swimming pool and recreational facilities

• Demonstration sites for renewable energy, such as solar and wind, and green building techniques

• Organic gardens and agricultural fields

• An archive center for Mink and for Old Maui High.

• Overnight accommodations for up to 60 adult retreat guests

• Refurbished kitchen and 150-person cafeteria

To this point, the nonprofit Friends and U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye have raised more than $500,000 in grants from the Environmental Protection Agency and Maui County for the master plan, site preparation and soil testing — which came up negative for harmful chemicals.

Long said that the the project still has many hurdles to overcome, including identifying and securing the rest of the funding it would require. The vision doesn't have an estimated price tag yet, Long said.

Five years ago, it was estimated that refurbishing the gutted administration building alone would cost up to $8 million. The C.W. Dickey building was already badly deteriorated when a fire destroyed most of the remaining timbers holding up the classic central dome and roof.

"It's like a huge jigsaw puzzle," Long said. "We need a lot of pieces to come into place."

The master plan projects redevelopment in three phases.

Renovations won't begin until 2013. Developing the youth camp would take another five years, the private retreat wouldn't be completed until at least 2020.

Friends of Maui High School is seeking $1 million, $800,000 of which the group hopes will come from the state and federal government, to stabilize, mothball and re-roof the administration building until work on the project can begin in earnest. So far, Long's group has worked for more than a decade to clean up the buildings and restore what they can. After the campus was shut down, the buildings were repeatedly vandalized and trashed, until Maui County attempted to make use of several of the old wood-frame classroom buildings. Several also were taken over for an agricultural research program of the University of Hawai'i's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources. The UH program closed in 2003, but the work to restore already had begun.

"I couldn't be happier with what has evolved," said Jan Dapitan, executive director of the Community Work Day program, which instigated both the cleanup effort and planning process.

"I see this as a unique and special learning center for the state of Hawai'i. It's kind of a dream," she said.

Long was at the Cultural Resources Commission meeting to seek members' input into what buildings should be saved. She also asked them to draw up a letter of support, which they immediately agreed to do.

There are some other significant challenges beyond finding funds to restore blue and white Saber pride. There is no potable water at the campus. It has catchment water and two nearby wells contaminated with agricultural pesticides have been barred from use as domestic water by the County Council.

Old Maui High opened in 1913 as Maui's first coeducational high school. It was a melting pot of cultures, Long said, and significant in Maui's social evolution.

But as the nearby sugar plantation camps closed while Kahului grew, the Hamakuapoko site became isolated and eventually obsolete.

While the people left, the vistas of the ocean never did. And the campus remains only about a mile from the coast, an ideal peaceful spot for a camp and retreats, Long said.

"Maui High was inspirational and it will be again," Long said.

For more Maui news, visit http://www.mauinews.com/default.aspx">The Maui News.