When Waipahu High School Principal Keith Hayashi looks ahead a few years, he no doubt has visions of a lively crowd enjoying good food, with laughter and song filling the night — all on his campus. It’s a vision that took a major step forward this month, when ground was broken on a $28 million, three-story building.

The facility will provide spaces for students from different disciplines, or academies, to work collaboratively and share what they’ve learned with the community.

This could take the form of a restaurant-like experience, with culinary students preparing dishes for customers seated in a spacious dining area on the third floor, overlooking the water. Hayashi envisions it as a site for birthdays, weddings and other celebrations, involving students from throughout the school.

“If a client wants entertainment for an event held in the facility, students from the Academy of Arts & Communication can write music that fits their theme,” he said. “Or the school chamber choir can sing, or the stage band can play.”

If the kitchen wants to develop a dish using a specific vegetable, it can tap the Academy of Natural Resources to grow it. Planning and financial matters will be handled by business students.

“All of this is student-led, with proceeds going back to the program for scholarships,” Hayashi said.

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Ground was broken Jan. 15 and construction is expected to take 18 months. “We’ve been planning for this building for about 10 years,” said Hayashi. Four years ago, funding started rolling in and planning and design began. “It’s been a gradual process.”

The building is the first of a two-phase plan. A second building would house traditional classrooms.

The ground level of the new building will house one of the school’s six academies, natural resources. The second floor will be dedicated to an area dubbed Design Thinking and Innovation, with computer, biotechnology and chemistry labs, that brings together students from different pathways. (The school organizes its disciplines of study into six academies. Within each academy, subgroups of study are called pathways.)

The third floor expands on one of the school’s established successes, Waipahu’s culinary pathway and its student-run restaurant, the Marauder Cafe, which opens each spring for about eight weeks. A new kitchen next to the dining space will be used to serve the restaurant and teach advanced culinary classes.

Hayashi said a larger space for the restaurant is long overdue. “When the Marauder Cafe opened 26 years ago, it just took off. Recently, it has become so popular that seats were sold out before opening day.”

The natural resources academy — which includes studies in environmental resource management, natural resource production and plant biotechnology — will introduce an aquaponics system that uses artificial intelligence to incorporate STEM learning.

It is a system Hayashi and other staff saw on a state-led agriculture trip to New Zealand. A Kauai monastery, he said, also utilizes AI technologies to increase food production.

The system featured a vertical farming setup, with computers monitoring aquaponic ponds to optimize growing conditions, and aquaponic trays stacked high in a glass warehouse to maximize crop space. The result was exceptional produce.

“The eggplant and tomatoes were huge,” Hayashi said. “If you can get that going, you do not need grade A farmland.”

The second floor will be dedicated to partnerships between academies. The fundamental goal is to enable students to seek out peers across pathways and build teams. “That’s real life,” he said.

“These labs support projects and research by students as they design and create solutions to real-world problems, working alongside industry partners and other community leaders. The possibilities are endless and only constrained by students’ imagination and innovations. That is the beauty of this learning facility.”

The bottom line in every study or endeavor, from AI aquaponics to specially designed prototypes to catered parties, is an education that prepares students in relevant ways for after they leave Waipahu High, he said.

“We try to provide opportunities, so that by the time they graduate, students are ready for higher education or industry, and confident in addressing authentic challenges. Our goal is for students to graduate with college credits and industry certifications to prepare them for high-skill, high-wage, future-focused careers that allow them to stay in Hawaii.”