CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM Iolani School's board of governors, major donors and representatives from the school community pitched in yesterday during a groundbreaking ceremony for phase I of the school's campus master plan. The first phase encompasses a three-story multipurpose classroom building that will be completed in the summer of 2003. It will house a computer lab, advanced placement biology lab, four physics labs, college counseling office, a large meeting/performance hall and 32 classrooms. The building will include 350 parking spaces, stadium seating, a press box facing the school's track and athletic field, and a new maintenance facility. Iolani has raised gifts and pledges of $15 million toward its $20 million goal. Among those participating in the groundbreaking were, from left, James Kawashima, board of governors chairman; the Right Rev. Richard S.O. Chang; and Val T. Iwashita, headmaster of Iolani.

Iolani breaks ground
for campus modernization

A new multipurpose building
is the start of a 20-year plan

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By Lisa Asato
lasato@starbulletin.com

Iolani School broke ground yesterday in the first phase of a 20-year master plan to modernize the more than half-century-old campus.

Construction of the three-story multipurpose building begins this summer and is scheduled to end next May. The building will house six labs, 32 classrooms, a college counseling office and a large meeting and performance hall, which when used as a single space may hold as much as 800 people, Headmaster Val Iwashita said.

Another part of Phase I, to be completed next fall, include renovating the Castle and Nangaku buildings and redesigning the campus entrance to improve traffic.

The architect is Group 70 International Inc. Nordic Construction is the construction company.

"It's a great day for Iolani," Iwashita said. "It's quite a milestone not only to start the largest construction project ever for our school but also to address the needs of students and teachers."

Beginning about five years ago, teachers, board members and some students and parents identified the current and future needs of the school.

What resulted was a master plan that converts parking spaces and roadways to gathering spaces and walkways, tears down existing structures in favor of new ones, and adds tennis courts, larger classrooms, new parking spaces and new stadium seating for the football and track fields.

Iwashita said buildings added after the school became coeducational in 1979 didn't keep pace with the expanded enrollment, which has grown by 300 to 1,800 students in kindergarten through grade 12. But the changes aren't meant to handle more students, he said, adding,

"We don't intend to increase the current number of students nor the number of students we teach in each classroom."

Iwashita said the school has raised $15 million in gifts and pledges since setting out to raise $20 million in 2000. Some of the larger donations include $2 million from The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, $1.5 million from the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation, and $1 million each from the Hung Wo & Elizabeth Lau Ching Foundation, Margaret & Daniel Ranzman Foundation, and Lin and Ella Wong Foundation.

Members of Iolani School board of governors committed $4 million.

Iwashita said the added classrooms will get the school closer to its goal of having a classroom for every full-time teacher in grades 7 to 12.

The total cost of the 20-year project is $60 million. Iwashita said the school is in the "final stages of the quiet phase" of fund raising, in which it taps the larger supporters, and will soon begin asking small and large groups for financial support.