University of Hawaii selects WCIT Architecture to design new home for College of Pharmacy

WCIT will be working in close collaboration with the science and technology branch of SmithGroup to plan the structure. The UH Hilo University Park of Science and Technology will be located at the corner of Komohana and Nowelo Streets, in close proximity to CoP’s temporary headquarters on South Aohoku Place. The site will bring together teaching, research, study, administrative and faculty office spaces that are currently distributed across seven different sites on the UH Hilo campus and the Hilo community.

The 60,000 gross square feet building will include two 120-seat lecture halls, 14 study rooms, a compounding/dispensing laboratory, a laboratory for simulation mannequins with an additional six beds to create a mini-patient ward, a working dispensing pharmacy to service student pharmacy needs on campus and to serve as an experiential practice site for pharmacy students, an Institutional Pharmacy with sterile preparations laboratory, fully equipped research laboratories, a vivarium, and office space for the administration, 47 faculty, postgraduate students, residents and post-doctoral associates.

SmithGroup has designed space for many of the country’s major research institutions, including General Electric, Eli Lilly, and the new Science & Technology Facility at the National Renewable Research Laboratory in Colorado. Some of WCIT’s projects include Starwood Vacation Ownership’s Westin Kaanapali Ocean Resort, Sheraton Keauhou Resort and Spa, Sheraton Waikiki Hotel & Resort, The Royal Hawaiian Hotel, The Ritz-Carlton Club & Residences at Kapalua Bay, Kauai Lagoons Resort, Honua Kai, The Villas at Royal Lahaina and a newly completed renovation at the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel.

In October 2010, Governor Linda Lingle released $5.5 million for the planning and design of a permanent building, which the state legislature approved in 2009. UH Hilo is in the process of securing funding for construction of the building, which has an anticipated cost of $66 million. If all goes as planned, the building will be complete in three and a half years.