Where the average person might see just a fancy new building in the Academy for Creative Media Student Production Center at the University of Hawaii West Oahu, others are seeing a launchpad for huge dreams for its students as well as the state.

To government and business leaders, the $37 million college academy, which held its grand opening Friday, represents a major step in Hawaii’s growth in entertainment, e-sports and digital media. They see potential to build a workforce for media jobs in the islands, construct an adjoining production studio and more than double the $400 million a year in direct spending that TV and film projects alone attract to the state.

To students like Mikaela Briones, a UH West Oahu junior, the addition of the academy at the Kapolei campus is a boost to the often beleaguered reputation of her nearby home community on Oahu’s Waianae Coast. And as Briones, who dreams of one day animating for the film giant Pixar, now pursues her general creative media degree, she sighs happily, “I don’t have to leave home.”

To instructors like Marion Ano, who teaches app development, the state-of-the-art academy is an opportunity to put powerful tools into the hands of Native Hawaiians and other people so they can solve human problems and their stories and cultures can be perpetuated.

“This is why I continue to teach,” said the part- Hawaiian lecturer.

And to the academy’s kamaaina founder, Chris Lee, former head of the entertainment giant Columbia TriStar, the Academy for Creative Media’s official launch after years of painstaking research, lobbying, planning and construction means finally having a nexus for the 16 creative media programs he leads across all 10 UH campuses.

“I’m excited for the students. I’m excited because this is a true state-of-the-art, industry-ready production center that is as good as anything that any other school in the world can offer,” Lee told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

“From the beginning my mantra has been, if all I’ve done is create something that sent more kids to the mainland, I feel I will have failed. But if it has populated our local economy, where digital workers fulfill the creative-economy needs, and they stay here, that’s really my goal.”

Visitors to the Academy for Creative Media are first drawn in by a massive LED screen on its facade lighting up an outdoor amphitheater. Its cavernous lobby, with a small amphitheater and another giant LED monitor, serves as a central hub for spokes of classrooms and suites: on the first floor, a massive soundstage built to industry specs; a “mill shop” for constructing sets and other projects; a Dolby Atmos 100-seat screening room and mixing stage; an e-sports arena with 24 gaming stations; digital post- production suites; and an “emerging media lab.”

Upstairs are classrooms and an artistically decorated “incubator space” dubbed the Hatchery.

Construction on the 33,000-square-foot building was completed in 2020, and classes quietly began in 2021, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed its grand opening.

Friday’s celebration attracted more than 300 guests and featured choral music by UH West Oahu students, a blessing by kahu Hailama Farden and effusive speeches by Lee, Gov. David Ige and UH President David Lassner. A celebrity panel discussion followed, with praise for the academy from actors Ronny Chieng, Mark Dacascos, Amy Hill and Kimee Balmilero, and producer Bird Runningwater.

The Bachelor of Arts in creative media is now UH West Oahu’s fastest-growing degree program, with more than 300 student majors; the university’s goal is to grow to 500 majors in five years.

One-fourth of the academy majors claim Hawaiian ancestry. Together with the rest of the creative media programs across the UH system, Lee said UH has “the first majority Native Hawaiian, Asian American and Pacific Islander media program in the world.”

Majors at the UH West Oahu academy choose from four concentrations: communication and new media technologies, design and media, video game design and development, and general creative media.

The students are being prepared for jobs in motion pictures, video production, design and social media as well as digital content creation, video game design and development, and the integration of storytelling and technology, a UH statement said. Hawaii’s creative sector, which includes the film, music, digital media and arts industries, already accounts for nearly 54,000 jobs across the state.

And more growth is coming for the academy and the community. Already the academy has been a catalyst for about a half-dozen Hawaii high schools’ creating feeder programs and early college courses in creative media, and new partnerships within industry, UH West Oahu Chancellor Maenette Benham said.

“There are lots of ways in which this particular program is not only good for our students and their families in terms of their careers, but how the program is reaching down into K-12 and reaching into a much larger business environment as well as the community,” she said.

In addition, a “Phase 2” for the academy, including an adjacent film production studio, is already in early discussions, Lassner and Gov.-elect Josh Green confirmed separately.

“We are looking at developing a commercial studio,” Lassner said in his speech at the ceremony. “We do not expect to ask for state funding for this; we’re looking for a private operator who knows how to build and do it. And our conversations are very positive.

“And we want to take it much further, creating really a destination around the studio that can support not just local filmmakers, but global filmmakers can come here, create jobs, create opportunity, create commercial activities, provide housing — there’s so much we can do here with this 500-plus acres in this lower portion of UH West Oahu. So we are beyond excited.”

Green said he expects the state to welcome development of a studio together with nearby homes.

“Having the capacity to actually house people here means a lot more production can occur,” he said. “It’s a priority because this could be could very well be the next leg of our economic stool.”