Businessman Jay Shidler, who graduated from the University of Hawai'i in 1968 and went on to found a nationwide real-estate investment group worth billions of dollars, wants to give back to his alma mater in a big way.

University officials announced yesterday that Shidler is donating $25 million to the UH College of Business Administration, the largest gift ever received by the university. The UH Board of Regents will meet Sept. 6 to consider accepting the gift and renaming the college in his honor.

Shidler, 60, said he hopes the donation will help increase university and state roles in national and international commerce.

"As a University of Hawai'i and College of Business Administration alumnus, I am proud to support the college in a way that will help transform it into the top rank of public business schools in our country," Shidler said in a statement.

Shidler and university officials yesterday declined to discuss details of the gift or how the money would be used pending action by the regents, but several business leaders who know Shidler say it could be a pivotal moment in the school's development.

"It's the type of action that could be a tipping point for the university. A gift like this is enormously symbolic of the potential that the entire university has," said Allen Doane, chairman and CEO of Alexander & Baldwin.

"This creates an awareness and commitment to the university above and beyond anything we've seen before," added David Heenan, a Campbell Estate trustee. "It's a wonderful precedent from a home-grown son that other alumni might want to follow in their own fields and ways."

Shidler, the founder and managing partner of the Honolulu-based Shidler Group, which manages more than 2,000 properties in 40 states and Canada, entered UH in 1964, and by the time he graduated in 1968 with a Bachelor of Business Arts degree, had made several successful real-estate investments.

After a stint as an officer in the Army Corps of Engineers, he returned to Honolulu in 1972 and bought his first building, the Polynesian Plaza on Kalakaua Avenue. He still owns it.

"There are quite a few people who have very large visions, but there are very few who have the ability to realize them. Jay is one of them," said Doane, chief operating officer for The Shidler Group in the late 1980s.

Since 1989, he has donated more than $174,000 to support astronomy, research, the business school, student activities and the founding of the Academy of Creative Media, said Donna Vuchinich, president of the UH Foundation. Shidler also served on the foundation's board of trustees from 1994 to 1997.

"Like many others, he had his formative experiences at a public university," Doane said. "There are now many, many instances of graduates giving back to large public universities where they received their degrees. In many ways, funds like this can be used much more flexibly than those received from government sources or small donors. This is the type of gift that has the potential to really grow and reshape the university."

The largest previous gift to the UH Foundation was "less than $10 million," said foundation spokesman Patrick Williams. In July, the College of Business Administration received a $1 million gift from alumnus William R. Johnson Jr. and his wife, Sylvia Sue. That money will be used to endow two new professorships at the college, officials said.

The business college, established in 1949 and known for its Asia-Pacific focus and programs in international management, is ranked among the nation's top 25 graduate schools for international business.

"For me, Hawai'i is not only a special place in which to do business but also a very viable place from which to conduct more geographically wide-ranging businesses," Shidler said. "Given my direct experience in forming and operating companies from Ha-wai'i, I believe Hawai'i can increase its role in national and international commerce to a greater degree than many might imagine. I believe having a first-rank business school here is critical to support, enhance and ensure this possibility."

Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.