DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM This is Klum Gym at the University of Hawaii-Manoa's lower campus, which the university wants to tear down to build a new parking structure. Behind it is the Stan Sheriff Center and the intramural gyms.

2 Manoa building plans would add UH parking

The University of Hawaii at Manoa is moving ahead with plans to demolish Klum Gym and build a $30 million parking structure that would add 900 spaces to the parking-strapped campus.

Another project on the upper campus would add six stories of parking, classrooms and rehearsal space on the site of the current visitor parking lot behind Kennedy Theatre for about $61 million. That project would add between 450 and 480 parking spaces for faculty, staff and visitors.

UH spokesman Gregg Takayama said there is clearly a need for more parking at Manoa. There are only 5,000 parking spaces to serve 20,000 students and more than 6,400 faculty, staff and administrators.

But it will take at least four or five years before any new parking structure can be built, said Kathy Cutshaw, UH-Manoa vice chancellor for administration.

If the Klum Gym project is approved by the Board of Regents next month, the university will ask the governor and the Legislature for $238,000 to start the planning for a new $18.5 million facility to replace Klum.

UH also is asking for $3.9 million to finish the design work for the parking structure and classrooms at Kennedy and will be requesting that the Legislature pay for the construction of the mixed-use facility.

Design and construction of the new parking structure at Klum will be paid for with parking revenues, Cutshaw said. That means students might have to pay for part of the parking structure before it is built and could graduate before it is finished, Takayama said.

"I don't want to pay more for something I can't use," said student Ben Garcia.

His friend Brian Butteling agreed. "I don't like it at all. I don't want to pay an extra parking fee," he said.

But student housing resident Marian Kong said parking on campus is fairly cheap now and that the lack of parking is so bad, she would be willing to pay more even if she graduates before the structure is completed.

"I can't even get parking," Kong said. "I park on Dole. I've already been broken into three times."

Dazalyn Caba feels the same.

"I think it's worth it," she said. "They need more parking spaces. I have a lot of friends, they search for like an hour looking for parking."

People who live in the area around the campus say they hope a new structure will ease the influx of students who cruise neighborhoods more than a mile away from campus looking for parking.

"Hopefully, it will take some of the pressure off," said Bert Narita, chairman of the Diamond Head/Kapahulu/St. Louis Heights Neighborhood Board.

But Narita wondered whether raising parking fees too much will just encourage more students to seek free street parking.

"We can build a parking structure, but there's still not going to be enough parking on campus," said Christina Stidman, president of the Associated Students of the University of Hawaii. "There's going to be a number of solutions to the problem."