Concerns over infrastructure in need of millions of dollars worth of repair has led to a location change for a regional biosafety laboratory targeted for O'ahu.

The University of Hawai'i announced last week that it will build a $37.5 million biosafety laboratory at the John A. Burns School of Medicine in Kaka'ako, instead of at Waimano Ridge in Pearl City as originally planned. Officials said the move was necessary after learning the renovation costs to get existing infrastructure up to standard for the new lab would be $38 million.

That cost would have eaten up the $25 million the National Institutes of Health gave the school to build the lab, along with the $12.5 million the state contributed. It also would have prolonged building the lab, which has to be completed by 2010.

Duane Gubler, director of the Asia-Pacific Institute of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases, said getting a lab of this caliber in Hawai'i is key to the area.

"Most disease experts consider it not a matter of if, but when Hawai'i will be introduced to infectious diseases," Gubler said. "It will allow us to work closely with public health officials and not be at the mercy of labs in the Mainland."

The Level III biosafe lab will be the 16th in the National Institutes of Health network across the United States. It will also be the only NIH biosafety lab west of Colorado Springs, Colo., and will represent Zone 9, which includes Hawai'i, Nevada and Arizona.

A Level III lab has high safety standards because its researchers study potentially lethal airborne diseases — pandemic viruses such as the bird flu — and the handling of the lethal matter requires protective clothing and safety systems such as a redundant air and water system to protect against the escape of any pathogens.

UH was originally awarded the NIH's grant in November. Gubler said this is the first time the NIH has approved a site change.

James Gaines, vice-president of research at UH, estimated the new lab, when up and running, will generate $10 million in research grants each year. Gaines said there has been little opposition to the lab coming here and that there will be no classified research at the laboratory.

Although informing the public has just begun, Gregg Takayama, director of public relations at the university medical school, said community hearings at Kaka'ako and in Pearl City last year have raised little opposition.

"There's always been questions, but we've never had anyone say no," Takayama said.

The Kaka'ako neighborhood board has heard one presentation from the group developing the lab and will hear another presentation by officials at a meeting July 25. Board members' original concerns were largely about safety and the lab being in a heavily populated area, said John Breinich, chairman of the Kaka'ako board.

Francis J. Blanco, director of project planning/facilities at the UH medical school, said the medical school is outside the flood zone and protected from the ocean by a 60-foot berm. Dangerous viruses will also be housed on the second floor, officials said.

Laurence Lau, deputy director for environmental health at the state Department of Health, supports having an NIH lab on the Island.

"These labs have good safety records," he said, "so I'm not concerned that it's posing a health risk to the community."

While smaller biosafety labs exist on O'ahu and in California, UH researchers say they do not provide access or resources needed to study an outbreak of an infectious disease.

The Health Department runs a public health laboratory that focuses on viruses that are already here or entering the state, Lau said. The university's biosafety lab will focus on treatments and vaccines.

"We're more of in a monitoring position," Lau said. "It's good to have these various resources that you have to back each other up."

Reach Robert Shikina at rshikina@honoluluadvertiser.com.