Plans have been drawn up and $3 million raised so far for a proposed Lahainaluna High School stadium.

The 3,000-seat facility for football, soccer and track (with eight lanes) will be built on the site of an existing football field nicknamed "The Imu." The Lahainaluna High School Foundation is spearheading the stadium project.

The estimated cost of the project is $7 million to $10 million, with work to begin when all or most of the money has been raised, said Mark Tillman, the foundation's athletic committee president.

Fund development coordinator Jeff Rogers began work July 1 and has been ferreting out grants from foundations and corporate donors. Already, Rogers said he has identified 22 foundations that might help finance the stadium project.

He said he also will pursue corporate donors such as Nike as well funding from the county and the state. Talks with county and state lawmakers as well as Gov. Linda Lingle and Mayor Charmaine Tavares have begun, Rogers and Tillman said.

The stadium normally would be a state-funded school project, but private/state-funded facilities are beginning to crop up, said Tillman. He noted a recently completed $4.5 million athletic facility at Roosevelt High School on O'ahu as an example of a state/private venture.

Having plans drawn up while leaving the state to "simply writing the check" and accepting the completed project speeds up the process and has fans in the Legislature, Tillman said he learned after meeting with state Sen. Roz Baker.

Foundation members are "hopeful" about receiving state money for the stadium but "have no solid expectations," Rogers said.

The long list of alumni from the school founded in 1831 and known as the oldest school west of the Rocky Mountains also will be helpful, said Rogers.

Mike Miyabara, Class of 1968 and a landscape architect, drew the landscaping plans for the new stadium and helped organize a golf tournament on O'ahu that raised $14,000.