Saint Louis School broke ground yesterday morning on the Clarence T.C. Ching Learning and Technology Center, the first new academic building to be built on the campus in 80 years.

The $10.4 million facility will house a host of programs currently crammed into classrooms — from Hawaiian studies to visual arts — and will also feature state-of-the-art technology and computer labs.

Work on the building will wrap up in January 2011.

"This is a historic day for Saint Louis School," said Walter Kirimitsu, president of the school. "The new center will provide students with a learning environment that's state of the art."

Loren Koanui, Saint Louis School's business and technology department chairman, said the center was just a dream when he was going to the school in the 1990s. He graduated from Saint Louis in 1998.

"It's a dream come true," he said of the center.

Koanui added that the center will hold the school's new business leadership program and will give students new space — and tools — to learn. "This will definitely take us to another level," he said.

So far, Saint Louis has raised $8.4 million for the new, 27,000-square-foot building, which will also feature a television production studio and a video conferencing center. The Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation gave the school $5.2 million for the new facility.

Ching Foundation Board Chairman Jack Tsui said at the groundbreaking that the donation for the center came from the sale of Kukui Gardens, the affordable housing development in Chinatown.

In the two years since the $130 million sale was completed, the foundation has distributed about $32 million — about $23 million of which went to educational institutions, Tsui told attendees.

Saint Louis, an all-boys school, was founded in 1846.

It has 650 students in grades five to 12.

Reach Mary Vorsino at mvorsino@honoluluadvertiser.com.