KAILUA, KONA, Hawai'i — Big Island community college students may have new digs when classes begin in the fall of 2010.

Developers of Palamanui, a 725-acre subdivision north of Kailua, Kona, announced last week they are eyeing that date to complete a 20,000-square-foot building to house the University of Hawai'i-West Hawai'i Center.

Currently, the community college-education center is housed in an old supermarket complex home in Kealakekua, a rented space that has long been inadequate for the 400-500 students it serves.

West Hawai'i residents have been demanding better secondary education opportunities for more than two decades, but university officials have said they have no long-term vision for a two- or four-year campus in West Hawai'i.

Instead, the education center will remain a secondary campus of Hawai'i Community College, which is in line for a new 100-acre campus in Hilo.

This education center in Palamanui will be built next to a 500-acre parcel of vacant land east of Kona International Airport that the University of Hawai'i Board of Regents selected in 1991 for a new education complex.

Plans for that project sputtered until the Palamanui developers offered to build the initial classrooms, offices and resource center. Palamanui also is committed to providing the initial sewer lines, water lines and a connector road that will be needed by the university for its own lands.

The developer, a partnership among investment brokerage firm owner Charles Schwab, Kona contractor Guy Lam and Texas-based Hunt Development Group, has put the price tag at $5 million.

Currently, West Hawai'i students make up roughly one-fifth of the more than 2,500-student enrollment at Hawaii Community College and attend classes in 13,500-square-feet of converted shopping center space.

With the new space, enrollment likely will double to about 1,000 students, said Jim Lightner, hospitality division chairman of Hawai'i Community College Food Service Program in West Hawaii and Hilo.

The culinary program currently includes a 500-square-foot classroom with a 1,000-square-foot kitchen, Lightner said. That program is slated to take up some 3,500 square feet in the Palamanui building.

"That's a plus for us," Lightner said. "It'll make a real difference."

The developer touts the $700 million, 725-acre community as a reflection of what residents envisioned through their community development plan for sustainable urban-style neighborhoods where people can live, work, learn and play within walking distance of their homes.

The development will include approximately 1,000 single and multifamily residences, a town center with a 120-room business and leisure hotel and a small town shopping village.

Palamanui will also have a 70-acre business park, health court and lifelong learning center, and a 20-acre regional park to be dedicated to the county's Department of Parks and Recreation.

In addition, a 55-acre native lowland native dry forest and archaeological and cave preserves will be set aside for restoration and preservation purposes.

Ground was broken on the Palamanui site in August 2007.