Kudo’s suggested moratorium reflects dire need for repairs

Last Thursday, University of Hawaiʻi Board of Regents member Benjamin Kudo called for a halt on new construction projects on University of Hawaiʻi campuses. Kudo is concerned that spending on new projects is affecting the University’s ability to maintain the rest of its buildings.

And he couldn’t be more right. The University is currently sitting on a repair and maintenance backlog of $487 million, of which 80 percent is at the flagship Mānoa campus.

Two expensive and ongoing construction projects, the Campus Center Renovation and Expansion Project ($46.5 million) and the Information Technology Center ($43 million ), are also taking place on the Mānoa campus.

Students and faculty have often wondered why UHM’s Campus Center (CC) is being renovated while classrooms across the campus sit in various states of disrepair and obsolescence. In fact, CC has a totally separate charter from the rest of UHM and planned their renovations separately from the rest of the campus Capitol Improvement Projects (CIPs).

Meanwhile buildings across the campus, from the dance facilities down in lower campus, to Kuykendall Hall, the 80,000 square foot epicenter for the Humanities, sit in disrepair.

Kuykendall Hall has been in bad shape for years. Professors and students alike have had to deal with a host of concerning wears and tears on the building including mold, broken air-conditioners, ground termites, asbestos-filled fire-doors (since removed) and a suspicious rate of breast-cancer and other illnesses within the English Department.

“The building has a long and sad history of neglect and poor retro-fitting,” said UHM English Professor Steve Canham. “We’re the core of the University, but the image of this building—what it tells the visiting students and their parents—who would want to come take classes in this building?”

“With all the sustainability projects system-wide, you’d think this one, which is national-level, would be at the forefront,” agreed fellow English Professor Kristin McAndrews.

McAndrews is referring to a long-standing CIP plan to repair Kuykendall and transform it into a model for sustainable architecture, planning and design. This CIP is separate from the building’s needed repairs in the backlog, but would have taken care of those issues as well.

Would have, because the plan has stalled out over a lack of funding from the Legislature, according to Director of the UH Center for Smart Building and Community Design, and Interim Assistant Vice Chancellor for Physical, Environmental & Long Range Planning, Steve Meder.

“As CIP projects came out in the Legislature this past session, Kuykendall didn’t get funded,” said Meder. “But Chancellor Apple wants to continue to pursue funding for it. It’s too bad, because this is a real, meaningful project that could be an engine of change and opportunity in the state.”

Canham agrees. “This was a chance to do it right; to really put UH on the sustainable map,” he said.

For more on the history of the Kuykendall project, go here.