University of Hawaii officials trying to learn how the Hale Noelani student housing complex ended up shuttered for seven years have discovered that although some top UH leaders have said they regret being unaware too long of its closure, preliminary work and permit applications actually were initiated and later canceled by the student-housing program in the past few years.

The revelation came to light during a hearing Thursday in a briefing before the state Senate Committee on Higher Education, led by Sen. Donna Kim, just two days after Alapaki Nahale-a was narrowly rejected by the state Senate for a second five-year term as a UH regent. Belated awareness of the severe disrepair of some student housing was a key issue that Kim and some other senators had said Nahale-a was accountable for as a regent and interim board chair.

UH President David Lassner also has come under fire from the senators for being unaware until around 2023 of the closure of the 530-bed Hale Noelani complex. He told the committee in a January briefing, “Nobody brought it to my attention, and I didn’t ask the question.”

Student housing was only one of numerous topics covered in a two-hour briefing before the Senate Higher Education Committee on facilities across the UH system. UH officials also answered senators’ pointed questions about why the university pays millions to rent space outside of state buildings when many UH campus facilities have vacancies, and whether UH ought to consider whether it’s undercharging for student housing and for parking for staff and students, among other issues.

Meanwhile, the UH Board of Regents held its first meeting since Nahale-a resigned Tuesday from interim services on the volunteer unpaid board and the interim chair position. Gabriel Lee, who previously was first vice chair, acted in the position of chair. The regents approved the 12 members of an advisory group for the search for the next UH president (see accompanying box).

Cost estimate was $47M

According to archival records newly discovered by UH staff, “It does look like at one point in time there were plans to try to renovate, to some degree, all five Hale Noelani buildings back in 2017,” Jan Gouveia, UH vice president for administration, told the Senate committee Thursday.

Records retrieved by UH Student Housing Project Manager Joe Lynch indicate that a cost estimate for Hale Noelani repairs in 2017 was $47 million. The following year a downsized plan for $10 million in repairs was made, and a permit application also was made in 2018, Lynch said.

About $500,000 was spent to create drawings and specifications for the planned renovation of Hale Noelani, Lynch said records indicate.

However, the student housing program issued a request to cancel the Hale Noelani repair project in 2022 signed by Laurie Furutani, head of student housing at the time, but the reasons are unclear, Gouveia said. Furutani has since retired.

Kim said she can’t understand how such major plans for the 1978-vintage, never- renovated complex were made without full knowledge by the UH president or regents. “Does this concern you guys at all — that you had a huge project going through all of this, and all of a sudden something happens and nobody knows?” Kim said.

Gouveia, who had student housing assigned to her office starting in August, responded, “If these people were to be reporting to me, yes, that would be a problem.”

“Ultimately, the Board of Regents is responsible. The (UH) president is responsible.” Kim said. She added later, “That’s why we have concerns — not because we want to control the university, not because we want to take over the UH presidential search, but because these are taxpayers’ dollars or students’ tuition dollars that are being expended and there’s no accountability for it.”

Digital system

Gouveia acknowledged that the deteriorating buildings are examples of “a broader lack of management around what’s happening on a day-to-day basis” with UH student housing.

She told the committee that it will be her responsibility to identify future construction and repair priorities and that her office is implementing a digital system “that will tie everything together, from the dorm assignments to rent collection, to putting in work-order requests,” in order to replace an obsolete system largely based on paper records.

“We have a laundry list of projects that we’ve identified that will improve the overall conditions across all 21 buildings that make up the (UH Manoa) student housing program,” she added.

The UH Manoa student housing operation is required by statute to be financially self-sustaining. It earns $23 million a year and houses and serves about 3,100 students.

For Hale Noelani, UH says it would take $80 million to renovate it and bring its 530 beds back online, or $327 million to replace it with a new structure that would provide 1,400 beds. The regents in their latest budget request asked for $80 million for an overhaul of Hale Noelani, but Gov. Josh Green did not include it in his budget for the 2024 state Legislature.

New financial model

Sen. Troy Hashimoto suggested it might be time for UH to rethink its housing rate strategy. “If we continue undercharging, the facilities are just going to get worse and worse, and we can’t repair it. It doesn’t make sense that we keep investing, right?”

Gouveia said UH is working with a third-party accounting firm to create a new financial model for student housing.

Affordability for students has been a high priority for the administration and the regents, for both housing and parking, but it also constrains the university in some ways, Gouveia said.

Meanwhile, a $6 million request has been made for additional parking on the upper campus at UH Manoa, she said. The lower-campus parking structure has about 2,500 parking stalls, but only about 900 to 1,000 are available to students. About 19,000 students and about 6,000 faculty currently use the Manoa campus.

An upper-campus structure could provide 1,500 to 2,000 additional stalls, Gouveia said. “The goal there would be to take all of the upper-campus parking that’s kind of sparse throughout, put it all in one parking structure, as well as add to the inventory and increased overall available stalls for students in the lower- campus parking structure.”

But Kim asked why so much more parking is needed when enrollment declined in recent years and is just starting to again approach the 20,000 mark. Gouveia, a UH Manoa alum, said she remembers when having to “suffer” to find parking was a rite of passage as a student. “So on the one hand, we can take that position. On the other hand, it is a request that has been made by students,” she said.

ADVISORY GROUP FOR UH PRESIDENTIAL SEARCH

The University of Hawaii Board of Regents on Thursday unanimously approved the 12 people nominated to serve on the Presidential Search Advisory Group for the search for UH’s next president:

>> Jaret KC Leong, director of Manoa Academy and Academic Pathways, and UH Staff Council co-chair

>> Erin E. Centeio, UH Manoa associate professor in the College of Education, and All Campus Council for Faculty Senate Chairs co-chair

>> Lindsey Millerd, UH West Oahu ASUH president and UH Student Caucus representative

>> Kamakanaokealoha Aquino, Native Hawaiian coordinator and Puko‘a Council representative

>> Dom Bonifacio, Leeward Community College ASUH senator

>> Jerris R. Hedges, UH Manoa John A. Burns School of Medicine dean emeritus

>> Brandon Marc T. Higa, former UH regent, Kapiolani Community College Grants Office director

>> Duane K. Kurisu, former UH regent, aio chairman and CEO

>> Tammi Oyadomari-Chun, state Department of Education deputy superintendent of strategy

>> Dirk Soma, Kauai Community College associate professor of business

>> Livingston “Jack” Wong, Kamehameha Schools chief executive officer

>> Noe Noe Wong-Wilson, Hawaiian Civic Club of Hilo president, ‘Aina Aloha Economic Development Futures Initiative founding co-author