The University of Hawaii at Hilo received $15 million in capital improvement funding that will allow the school to begin maintenance, design and renovation projects for the campus.
The release of the capital improvement project funding from Gov. Josh Green’s office was announced last week by state Sen. Lorraine Inouye who said the funds “will support upgrades to university facilities to better serve students, faculty, and the wider Hawaii Island community.”
“Investments like this strengthen our educational infrastructure and ensure our students have access to a modern, high-quality learning environment,” Inouye said in a news release.
UH Hilo Vice Chancellor for Administrative Affairs Kalei Rapoza said a funding request for the CIP funds was approved by the Board of Regents and submitted to the governor’s office for inclusion in the biennium budget request to the Legislature.
He said the funding enables the university to “move forward with procurement for design and construction” on four important projects that were “added to our list of projects within the last three years, superseding less critical projects.”
“We are grateful for the support from the governor and Legislature that will allow us to better serve our students through improved facilities,” said UH Hilo Chancellor Bonnie Irwin.
Rapoza said the projects selected for the fiscal year 2026 funding are renovation and improvement of the air-conditioning systems, renovation and improvement of the agricultural facility to provide modern instruction, designing renovations and upgrades to student housing, and designing a “replacement of built-up roofing.”
“Addressing deferred maintenance early proactively allows repairs to be completed efficiently, preventing relatively simple issues from escalating and avoiding higher costs and impacts to operations,” Rapoza said. “By prioritizing maintenance investment now in critical areas, operations are safeguarded against disruptive outages, minimizing downtime and protecting critical assets.”
Rapoza said he expects contracts for the work to be in place by spring 2026 to allow construction to begin in 2027.