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Hawaii Begins First Net-Zero High School Project in Maui

MAUI, Hawaii — Work began on Maui’s Kihei High School on Jan. 11 after decades of petitioning and planning, according to Maui Now. The new high school will serve ninth- to 12th-grade students with an enrollment capacity of approximately 1,650 students and 206 staff and faculty.

Efforts to build the new school have been underway since the early 1990s. Representative Kaniela Ing, D-South Maui, told Maui Now that the facility will be more than just a school, and will also serve the community by providing both a gymnasium and a stadium. He added that offering sports and activities would bring young people together and give them a better sense of belonging.

The project, which will cost an estimated $130 million, has already seen funding problems due to unforeseen fiscal challenges and administrative changes. “The scale of this project is an enormous,” Rep. Ing told Maui Now. “Sometimes things happen that are out of your control, but all you can do is be transparent with the community, never get discouraged and keep moving forward. The important thing is it is happening now.”

In 2014, when Gov. David Ige assumed office, his department chose to take a phased approach to the school’s construction. The first phase of construction will be allotted $30 million to cover expenses related to groundwork, well construction and establishing an access road to the site. Additional funds, which will likely be allotted in the next legislative session, will be used to construct classrooms and administrative buildings. Depending on the final design and cost of materials, however, the project may not require the full $130 million allocation.

When complete, Kihei High School will be the first net-zero high school in Hawaii, according to Ing, and will be powered by clean and renewable energy sources. Ing told Maui Now that he believes this new high school will set an example for what other new schools should look like in the future.

If the project remains on schedule, the school will be completed in 2018.

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Hawaii Revises Impact Fees to Benefit Local Districts

WAILUKU, Hawaii — Landowners seeking to build new housing in Maui will soon be required to pay new "impact fees" for the construction of new school facilities directly to the local districts rather than through the state or county.

The State Department of Education announced a new law that requires the designation of impact districts in high growth areas across the state and sets a formula for calculating the amount of land and fees applied to each new single-family and multi-family unit built, including houses built by individual landowners on individual vacant lots.

Land and fees collected will be used for new schools and facilities to accommodate students residing in the new residential units, a shift from allowing developers to pay the fees through the county or state.

Single-family impact fees per unit range from $5,373 to $5,778. Multi-family impact fees per unit range from $2,055 to $2,451. Maui is the first in the state to have the new fees in place, with West Hawaii expected to follow suit.

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Sustainability, Hawaiian Style

KAMUELA, Hawaii — The recently completed Hawaii Preparatory Academy Energy Research Laboratory is being billed as the first K-12 school facility in the world to meet the Living Building Challenge, an advanced measure of building sustainability established by the International Living Building Institute.

The 6,000-square-foot high school science lab is a net-zero energy building, meaning it uses no energy from the grid and produces zero carbon emissions.

Generating all its power from a photovoltaic system and wind turbines, the laboratory produced close to 7,000-kilowatt hours of electricity in its first 60 days in use. Using only about 30 percent of the energy it created, the balance was then net-metered back into the school’s campus grid.

With such a focused design approach to energy use, it’s small wonder that the lab is awaiting LEED Platinum certification.

Designed by Boston-based Flans-burgh Architects, and constructed by Quality Builders of Hilo, Hawaii, the energy lab regulates its interior climates, maintaining temperature, relative humidity, and carbon dioxide levels via input from more than 250 sensors. The laboratory also captures and filters all of its own drinking and wastewater and generates hot water using solar thermal panels. The building is naturally ventilated and utilizes an experimental radiant cooling system instead of air conditioning.

To meet the Living Building Challenge, wood used on the project was either Forest Stewardship Council certified or from salvaged sources. The bulk of the materials came from no greater than 5,000 miles away, with heavy density building items transported from no more than 1,000 miles away.

The two-story building features open classroom areas, outdoor courtyards and decks, individual project rooms, a monitoring lab, a video-conferencing room, and a basement for storage. The central area is a collaborative flexible open space and the front of the lab is a workshop where all building and testing takes place.

"We designed the energy lab to have three zones that mimic the creative process that students experience when working on projects, from brainstorming, to design, to physical construction," says David Croteau, Flansburgh’s project architect. "Additionally, students are constantly surrounded by the systems they study at the HPA’s Energy Lab, which offers a continuous, sustainable teaching moment."

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