Within the next two months the University of Hawaii expects to break ground on nearly $20 million in Manoa campus construction projects aimed at improving its aging athletic facilities and removing the threat of NCAA sanctions.

Officials are heralding it as the biggest athletic building boom on the lower campus since the Stan Sheriff Center began its rise from the quarry floor in the early 1990s.

The centerpiece will be the long-awaited Clarence T.C. Ching Athletic Complex on the site of the former Cooke Field. Ground breaking is scheduled for July 17. By then, work is also scheduled to be well under way on a $4.5 million expansion of the Nagatani Academic Center.

The projects will be fueled or completed with a $12.5 million capital improvement appropriation from the Legislature that awaits the signature of Gov. Neil Abercrombie.

Athletic director Jim Donovan said it is the exclamation point on $42 million appropriated or pledged since he took over in 2008 "and will help us stay competitive." UH President M.R.C. Greenwood said, "It (the $12.5 million) is a very good start. It isn’t everything we need, but it is very encouraging."

State Senate President Shan Tsutsui said, "The University of Hawaii is the premier higher education learning institution in our state. Some of the capital improvement projects have been on the repair and maintenance backlog list for years and it’s time we take care of them before the situation and need becomes greater. It is also important for us to invest in our students and athletes and give them the best facilities we can provide that will help them strive to succeed in order to compete at the national and global level."

Donovan said, "The need to be competitive has really resonated with the executive and legislative branches. Everybody, the governor and legislators, have come together and carried the ball to help support UH at a crucial time."

Not only are UH opponents increasingly updating and expanding facilities, but the NCAA Division I Committee on Athletic Certification announced in February that it was withholding full certification from UH. The committee said it was listing the school as "certified with one condition" until facilities issues regarding gender equity were addressed.

The NCAA said it took the action after UH, which had pledged to address the issues in a 2002 report, had not yet done so.

The NCAA report said UH is required to submit "evidence regarding the resolution of this issue as soon as practicable, but not later than Jan. 18, 2013" or face being placed in the NCAA’s "restricted membership" category. Institutions listed as "restricted members" may be ruled ineligible for NCAA championships.

The Ching Athletic Complex, begun by a $5 million donation from the foundation of Clarence T.C. Ching, the late real estate developer and UH fan, is the central piece. The donation is the largest ever given to UH athletics and will be used to help expand grandstands and add locker rooms, offices for coaches, sand volleyball courts, a press box, a scoreboard and, possibly, a concession stand. The facility is to be used by UH football, sand volleyball, soccer, track and intramurals as well as ROTC, band, high school and community groups.

The Ching donation came with the expectation that UH would match the money for what was originally envisioned in 2008 as a $9.7 million project that would be completed by 2011. But the project was delayed as UH struggled to come up with the funds. Earlier this year the Board of Regents authorized a reallocation of $3 million from the surplus of a bookstore project and now will use a portion of the $12.5 million appropriation to underwrite what has become a $13.38 million project. It is expected to be finished December 2013, UH said.

UH is hoping to use some of the remaining money for the renovation of the football locker room and permanent video towers.

The push comes at a time when many of the Warriors’ opponents in the Mountain West Conference are improving facilities. For example, San Jose State’s $12 million Bill Walsh Center, a 60,000-square foot, two-building complex, is expected to open in 2013, as is Boise State’s planned $22 million, 69,000-square-foot football center.

Football coach Norm Chow made upgrades a key talking point with university and government officials upon coming to UH in January and led a tour of the facilities for legislators. "We had an understanding with our legislators to continue to improve our facilities, but certainly having Coach Chow come on board really gave us a strong catalyst," Greenwood said.