UH-Hilo plan for
China center delayed

Answer: A rise in the international price of steel caused by the booming Chinese economy has forced an architectural redesign that has delayed the project, said university official Gerald DeMello.

Officials now hope to have four dormitory buildings with about 770 beds ready by Oct. 1, 2006.

The center was conceived in the mid-1990s as a Taiwanese-funded project with dormitories, educational facilities dealing with Chinese culture, a 100-room hotel and commercial facilities such as a shopping arcade.

The site is 36 acres across Kawili Street from the main UH-Hilo campus.

Since an environmental study in 2002, the overall price has ballooned to $100 million from $60 million. Bids on steel-framed dormitory buildings came in "astronomically high," said DeMello.

The new plan is for precast concrete dorms that cost no more than about $40 million.

GEO International Explorer Inc., headed by Chairman George T.P. Huang, will build the dorms and then pay the university to operate them. The company's real profit will come in later commercial phases.

The university is desperate for the dorms because there is no place to house applicants who want to attend the school. "We turn away 250 to 300 per year," DeMello said. With marketing, the university might get 500 more a year, he said.

With 3,300 students now, the school houses some in hotels and apartments and runs an hourly shuttle from those sites to the campus, DeMello said.