Some West Oahu residents say they are happy University of Hawaii-Manoa Chancellor Tom Apple is dropping plans to build a $47.5 million Pacific Health Research Laboratory in Kalaeloa.
Apple this week said he decided to cancel plans after U.S. military officials "surprisingly" increased the proposed rent and offered a short-term lease for the Kalaeloa parcel that was chosen for the new infectious-disease research facility.
"I’m really glad about the news," said Michael Kioni Dudley, a member of the Makakilo-Kapolei-Honokai Hale Neighborhood Board. "I think it was a real danger to the community. Everybody on the board is strongly opposed to it."
Dudley said the laboratory would have been just three blocks away from Kapolei High School and four blocks from a proposed elementary school.
The facility would have been classified as a Level 3 biosafety lab, able to house disease agents that can potentially cause lethal infection and can be transmitted through the air.
The lab was expected to employ up to 20 people, focusing on early detection and vaccine research for potentially deadly diseases from the Asia-Pacific region, including severe acute respiratory syndrome, dengue and antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis and influenza.
Apple said UH had been in talks with the National Institutes of Health about potential grant funding, and that university researchers could have eventually attracted about $10 million in grant money annually.
"I think then that would also draw a lot of companies interested in vaccinations and better vaccinations and the whole industry that grows around that," he said.
Apple said the university was hopeful the NIH would provide grant money to fill the anticipated $2.2 million in operating deficit once the laboratory was built.
"We were having very productive conversations with NIH about how they might provide that money," he said.
Apple said the Army raised the proposed rent from a nominal fee to $220,000 a year, and the Pentagon would only commit to a five-year lease for the Kalaeloa parcel.
"They really surprised us. To be honest, they surprised the local people here, the Corps of Engineers who were working with us — they were all surprised by the terms that were in that lease," Apple said.
He said he hopes UH will find a way to develop the laboratory in the future because it could become a center for research.
Marissa Capelouto, also a member of the Makakilo-Kapolei-Honokai Hale Neighborhood Board, said the state needs jobs, and she wants the university to have good laboratory facilities.
"But the location is just not good. It’s not safe," she said.
In lieu of the laboratory at Kalaeloa, Apple said the university plans to refurbish laboratory facilities.
UH has reopened its biological laboratory at the John A. Burns School of Medicine in Kakaako, after it had been closed for repairs for six months. The laboratory’s ventilation system was not preventing air from escaping, and some doors and other fixtures weren’t sealed properly.
The temporary closure of the medical school laboratory cost the university about $150,000 worth of research, officials said.
Dudley said the situation at the school’s laboratory "cemented" feelings among board members opposed to the proposed laboratory in Kalaeloa.
Plans for a new laboratory have been in the works for about a decade.
The proposed lab at Kalaeloa was originally going to be built in Kakaako next to the medical school, but that space was instead used for the University of Hawaii Cancer Center. Before Kakaako there were plans to put the lab in Waimano above Pearl City.
