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The University of Hawaii has selected the joint venture of Hawaiian Dredging and Kajima Corp. to help build what is touted as the school's largest project ever. UH selects builder
for med schoolHawaiian Dredging/ Kajima
will build the complex in KakaakoBy Rod Antone
rantone@starbulletin.com
The proposed Health and Wellness Center to be located in Kakaako will generate 2,900 local jobs and increase the university's research capacity by $100 million, according to UH President Evan Dobelle.
"Based on these presentations, the internal committee made the decision on what firm they felt could deliver on a very complex project, on time and on budget," said Dobelle in making the announcement yesterday.
"The people of Hawaii deserve no less."
Hawaiian Dredging/Kajima will be partnered with Southland Electrical Contractors of California to handle what is also being called the university's most complex project ever.
"The facility will have to maintain many different environments," said Hawaiian Dredging President William Wilson.
"Some rooms will have to support animal life, some of them will have to be germ free. ... You have to ask yourself what kind of research will be expected in 2005."
The first phase of the project is expected to cost upward of $155 million, said Dobelle, with $120 million going toward construction. Dobelle said the project is on schedule for a September groundbreaking.
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A 14-member advisory committee composed of local businesses and education leaders recommended Hawaiian Dredging/Kajima from among the short list of three joint ventures. The other two included ACK + McCarthy and Kiewit/DPR.Dobelle said the reason Hawaiian Dredging/Kajima won was because the firm had worked with outside companies before.
"The intricacies of the electrical plumbing and other utilities required that any firm considering this project would have to reach out to partners that had experience building cutting-edge laboratories."
The project has been called aggressive in a time when state funds are short. Referring to those criticisms, Dobelle likened the administration's efforts to build a new medical school to the efforts of the UH men's basketball team, which made it into the NCAA tournament last weekend.
In essence, both are UH endeavors that will find a way to win, he said.
"The perception's that in Hawaii you can't get things done," said Dobelle. "We're going to get some things done at the University of Hawaii and hopefully give that confidence to other people in Hawaii that government works."
UH John A. Burns School of Medicine
