Firms chosen to bid on
medical school job

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By Treena Shapiro
tshapiro@starbulletin.com

A 14-member advisory committee, composed of local business and education leaders, has selected three local and mainland joint venture partnerships to bid on a $100 million to $120 million project to build a medical school campus in Kakaako.

The construction is the first phase of a $300 million effort to build a Health and Wellness Center on land now occupied by the Department of Agriculture's plant quarantine branch.

Previously a project of this scope would have been sent to the Department of Accounting and General Services.

UH president Evan Dobelle said he was uncomfortable with a lack of process and procedure that has plagued UH construction projects in the past. With a community advisory committee, he hopes to avoid local politics and "to broaden those who get to look at the dollars to get to look at the contracts that are given out."

"The point of the thing is we need to prove after way too many years that the University of Hawaii can build a project on time and on budget," Dobelle said.

The bidders are ACK + McCarthy, Hawaiian Dredging/Kajima and Kiewit/DPR. UH Board of Regents Vice Chairman Bert Kobayashi previously held a controlling interest in ACK, but sold the company to employees in 1997.

His only financial interest in the company is a pension plan, said Paul Costello, UH vice president of external affairs. Kobayashi has recused himself from any decision making about Kakaako.

The contractors must respond by Feb. 15. "Hopefully we're going to be able to get this project contractor selected by spring and put a shovel in the ground by late fall," Dobelle said.

The university hopes to reduce and control costs by having the contractor involved in the early stages of the project, working with the architects and engineers, said Dr. Edwin Cadman, dean of the medical school.

The John A. Burns School of Medicine and the Cancer Research Center are included in the first phase of the Health and Wellness Center. Eventually the project will include a Cancer Research Center building, a Center for Biotechnology in Kakaako and renovation of the Biomedical Sciences Building in Kakaako.

The construction effort will be headed by UH vice president Allan Ah San, to be assisted by Massachusetts-based consultant Jack Bradshaw, a senior management team from the Massachusetts Institute for Technology and a consulting firm hired by Kamehameha Schools, Dobelle said.