Groundbreaking was scheduled today for a new University of Hawaii medical school envisioned as an "economic engine" to power a biotechnology industry. Groundbreaking today
heralds new era
for med schoolBy Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.comThe John A. Burns Medical School would have been scuttled as a financial drain if UH reorganization proposals in 1999 were adopted.
Instead, Dr. Edwin Cadman came from the Yale-New Haven Hospital and Health System to head the distressed school, announcing he was going to turn it around.
The result: a $150 million new medical school complex that Gov. Ben Cayetano said "will be a premier center for biomedical research that will be a catalyst for the growth of a strong biotechnology industry in Hawaii."
Launching the 9.1-acre development will be construction of an education and administration building and the first of two research buildings. They are scheduled for use in the fall of 2005.
The site is bounded by Ilalo Street, the Kakaako Gateway Park, Kakaako Waterfront Park and Fort Armstrong.
Kamehameha Schools is planning tentatively to develop about 10 acres of its property on the makai side of Ala Moana for related high-technology, biotechnology and bioscience uses.
Sanford Murata, director of the Commercial Assets Division, said the estate is recommending uses supportive and synergistic with the bioscience campus being developed around the medical school.
"It would be wonderful, we think, a very important new industry for Hawaii, one that is taking Ed Cadman's vision and building on it over a long period of time," Murata said.
Cayetano, among officials participating in today's ceremony, anticipates the biomedical complex will create more than 1,000 new construction and bioscience jobs, bring millions of dollars in research grants to the UH and anchor "development of a revitalized Kakaako Waterfront."
A committee led by Dr. Charles Boyd has worked more than six months to design office space and laboratories to reach those goals with a creative work environment for the researchers.
Boyd, in the Pacific Biomedical Research Center, is principal investigator and director of one of 24 Centers for Biomedical Research Excellence for cardiovascular research across the country.
He said the design group worked with Architects Hawaii and San-Diego-based RFD, Research Facilities Design, a subcontractor that designs research facilities.
The committee visited five California research facilities to look for innovative ways to maximize interaction by medical investigators in the three-story research building yet conserve individual spaces, he said.
A major goal was to make the laboratories flexible to accommodate changes in research programs, Boyd said, noting drywall limitations to expansion in the biomedical sciences building on the Manoa campus.
The first research building is designed for 36 faculty members to start what is hoped ultimately will be "a critical mass" of researchers with well-funded programs to attract related biotech industries, Boyd said.
The second research building will provide for at least 80 principal investigators, he said.
Its development hinges on raising another $150 million, including $80 million for the new building, $60 million to renovate the existing biomedical building and $10 million for a biomedical park, said Francis Blanco, director of project planning.
The bottom floor of the first research building will house an animal facility, containment laboratories, an anatomy lab and fee-for-service facility for DNA or protein analyses, Boyd described.
The second and third research floors will have large open modular lab units with adjacent support labs and offices to accommodate 180 people, including faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and technicians, he said.
Blanco said the education and administration building also will have three floors designed with two wings, one on each side of a lobby. On one end will be a fourth floor.
The first floor will have a cafe, and negotiations are under way to move parts of the Hawaii Medical Library there, he said.
The other floors will accommodate administrative and faculty offices; a clinical skills laboratory, medical education and simulation center; classrooms; tutorial rooms; an auditorium; offices for student affairs, medical education, native Hawaiian medicine and other functions; information technology server rooms; biomedical research; fiscal affairs; and other offices.
Boyd said the long-term goal is to relocate the entire medical school to Kakaako. Until the third research building is completed, some programs, including his, will remain in the present biomedical building, he said.
UH John A. Burns School of Medicine
