They gave thanks Friday in a simple, but heartfelt way.

Kamehameha Schools unveiled the long-awaited new athletic department facility, Koai‘a, during a lunchtime blessing and ceremony. The building has an enormous weight room, whirlpools, jacuzzis, roomy locker rooms and new offices for the athletic department.

“It’s amazing. The kids are lucky,” boys basketball coach Julian Nakanishi said. “It finally came to fruition.”

Koai‘a is part of a $100 million campus renovation, the “first rollout,” school spokesman Pakalani Bello said.

The middle school’s new buildings are near completion, as well. Then comes a new Hawaiian culture center, Bello added.

The Koai‘a building is located between Kunuiakea Stadium and the swimming pool, the latter being under renovation, too.

Koai‘a was a senior trainer and instructor of Kekuhaupi‘o, a warrior of Kamehameha. The building also includes physical education classrooms, and a laundry area with shiny, chrome washers.

The spacious new weight room includes 12 bench presses, among tons of equipment.

“Now we can train a lot more kids than we used to. The old weight room that we had for three years, we could only fit 12 to 15 kids,” football coach David Stant said.

“Now we can work out 40 to 50 kids.”

There’s still quite a bit of open space in the weight room.

“They actually cut our budget in half,” Stant said. “We wanted nine of these Keiser (machines). We got three. You can do a lot with these, pulling, pushing, hammers. You get explosive movement with this.”

Senior Keoni Bush-Loo, a football player, plans to get maximum use of the new weight room when it opens. He does three events in track and field: shot put, discus and 200-meter dash. He recently signed to play football at Arizona State.

“It’s a beautiful facility,” he said.

Basketball standout Dyrbe Enos is happy that the project is done.

“We work out twice a week during the season, and almost every day in the offseason,” he said. “A lot of plyometrics.”

The athletic department has two trainers, who will have two jacuzzis and two whirlpools, equipped for hot and cold water. There is also stationary equipment.

“This Woodway, it’s like walking on water,” Stant said of the new treadmills. “It’s great if you have sore knees.”