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New, $20 million
Mililani elementary
in the works

The facility is to be ready in
the fall of 2003, and work may
start next year

By Harold Morse
Star-Bulletin

A new, $20 million elementary school appears on track for the 2003 fall term in Mililani Mauka.

Mililani Mauka II will be about a mile from Mililani Mauka Elementary, which is using portable classrooms because it has some 1,050 students and only a 900-student capacity. The older school will still be used after the new school opens.

The Department of Education and the governor are asking the Legislature for $1.8 million for design and planning of the new school.

"They made it a high priority this year," Betty Mow, Central district deputy superintendent, told about 25 people at a meeting at Mililani Mauka Elementary last night.

If all goes well, the first $12 million-$14 million increment of the new school should be finished in about July 2003. Lester Chuck, Department of Education facilities director, said the second increment likely will have a $6 million-$7 million price tag.

"The school will be built in two increments," Mow said, adding that the existing Mililani Mauka was built in three increments.

Alan Arakawa, Castle & Cooke vice president for land development, said the new school will be on a 12-acre site near Mililani Middle School.

Mililani Mauka occupies 9.3 acres, Mow said.

It is hoped that the design process can begin in July, Chuck said. The design is expected to take nine to 12 months, and bids might go out in about July 2001, he said.

"It would probably be in the fall (2001) when we start construction," Chuck said.

Keith Kameoka, Department of Education decision and support specialist, said that when the new school opens it is projected to have 297 students, ranging from kindergarten through the second grade.

The higher grades would be added later, with a projected student body of 651 in kindergarten through fifth grade in the fall of 2004, he said.

Fall 2005 would see a student body in all grades of 695, Kameoka said.