As ‘Iolani School marks its 150th anniversary this year, school officials say the private Hono­lulu campus is making strategic investments with an eye on the century ahead.

"For many organizations, 150 years is an unachievable life span. For ‘Iolani School, not only do we commemorate this milestone, but we also look to the next 150 years with optimism and confidence," Head of School Timothy Cottrell wrote in a recent issue of the school’s quarterly magazine.

He points to the school’s $23 million Sullivan Center for Innovation and Leadership under construction as an example.

"I don’t believe there is any other high school in America making an investment like this," Cottrell said in an interview this week.

The school — founded in 1863 by Queen Emma and King Kame­ha­meha IV —marked its 150th anniversary Tuesday with a birthday celebration on campus for its 1,880 students and 200 teachers.

Cottrell described the innovation center as one of the school’s most ambitious projects to date, adding that it "will position the school at the very forefront of education for the 21st century."

The center — set to open in September for the new school year — will be a four-story building at the center of the 25-acre campus. Cottrell said it will be "40,000 square feet without a single classroom in it."

Instead, much of the building will be devoted to open spaces designed to encourage collaboration, with some of the features modeled after the Institute of Design at Stanford University and the Bisset Collaborative Center at Cornell University.

Cottrell, who came on board last summer, has created a new department — the iDepartment, with the "i" standing for "innovation" — and added five positions to staff the center.

Activities slated for the center include prototyping, robotics and electronics, engineering, digital media and sustainable agriculture. Courses to be taught resemble technical college-level courses: Make It 101; Design and Fabrication; iPad App Design and Development; Economics and Entrepreneurship; Multi­media Production; Foundation of Leadership and Ethics.

"It’s not as if we’re changing ‘Iolani, but we’re adding a dimension to the school," he said.

Cottrell, who has master’s and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from Princeton University, said some of the center’s activities are "right up my alley." He’ll be teaching a course at the center on renewable energy systems.

The center is named after the lead donor on the project, Joanna Sullivan and her family. She is the widow of Foodland Super Market founder Maurice "Sully" Sullivan, whose entrepreneurial spirit Cottrell says epitomizes what the center hopes to accomplish.

"Students will be doing groundbreaking, newsworthy work and inventing things. It’ll be a great contribution to the education community and to the state," he said.

Another notable investment was the purchase a few years ago of 5.5 acres adjacent to the campus.

Cottrell said there are no immediate plans for the land, which sits under several neighboring residential buildings. But he said a performing arts center would be a likely candidate in the next five to 10 years.