Frear Hall is named after Mary Emma Dillingham Frear who served as a regent of the University of Hawaii for two decades. In 2005 Frear Hall was constructed on the site of the original women’s dormitory. Frear houses 810 co-ed undergraduate and upperclassmen and holds a LEED Silver certification. Frear is also the only centrally cooled dormitory building. In 2013 all the lighting in frear hall was replaced with LED savings approximately 5,306 kWh per year.
Frear Hall was designed to be energy efficient so finding room for improvement was not easy. Although the amount of electrical energy conserved by switching to LED lights is modest, there is an additional benefit. The load on the air conditioning system is reduced because LED lights emit less heat than conventional lights.