By Anna Weaver | Hawaii Catholic Herald

Maryknoll School held a late afternoon blessing and groundbreaking ceremony on Nov. 13 at the site of its future $12 million athletic and community center on the corner of Alexander and Dole Streets in Honolulu.

Artist's drawing of future building

The 3,500 square-foot, two-story Maryknoll School Community Center, scheduled to be completed in early 2009, will include a NBA regulation basketball court, locker rooms, athletic offices, classrooms, laundry facilities, multipurpose meeting rooms, a fitness center, a food concession area, and an underground parking lot.

The center will be big enough to hold the entire Maryknoll student body of 1,400 boys and girls from pre-kindergarten to twelfth grade for athletic, performing arts, and other school events. Maryknoll also plans to let community groups use the building when it is not in use for school functions.

Maryknoll School, founded in 1927 by six Maryknoll Sisters, has never had a gymnasium let alone a glorified community center. Sports practices and games have been held elsewhere and large school events take place outdoors.

School president Michael Baker said, “For [the students] it’s wonderful. They’re finally going to have home games, not have to be bussed to practices, not have to have May Day outside.”

“It means a lot more to the alumni,” he said. “Almost every [school] generation along the way has been told, ‘Someday we’ll have our own home.’”

He said that alumni reaction to Maryknoll’s official announcement in May 2004 that the facility would finally be built was largely disbelief. “They’ve been saying, ‘Show me,’” Baker said after the groundbreaking ceremony attended by 150 people. “I hope we have today.”

The community center will be the first major building to be constructed at the Maryknoll campus in 25 years. In preparation for the project the school purchased several adjoining properties between 1998 and 2004. An apartment building on the center’s future site was torn down in March 2007 and students painted a mural on the wall surrounding the construction site to prevent graffiti.

Kalene Sakamoto, mother of third grader Kyler Sakamoto, has helped with fundraising efforts for the project through the Honolulu Chinese Junior Chamber of Commerce Foundation. The group raised $75,000 and Sakamoto says all the fundraising work paid off.

“It was very worth it not only for the children now, but for the community,” she said. “It’s really not just a gym. It’s a community center.”

She said her son won’t have to have physical education classes on the asphalt courtyard anymore or have to perform at an outdoor May Day in the rain, like students did this past year.

Long-time community center proponent Dr. Gabriel W.C. Ma, a member of the Maryknoll development committee and former board member, said that when his grandchildren started attending Maryknoll he saw that the students had no place to eat, meet or hold functions.

Now the retired orthopedic surgeon, who was a member of the 1948 China national basketball team, is looking forward to the day the community center opens. “I want to be the first person to shoot a basket [in there],” he said.