Purdue trustees approve capital project plan

September 8, 2022

Friday, August 5, 2022 05:34 PM EDT
By Wes Mills, Content Manager
(photo courtesy of Purdue University)
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The Purdue University Board of Trustees on Friday approved the university’s 10-year capital plan, which includes funding requests the university intends to submit to the state. The biggest planned project is construction of a 201,000-square-foot academic home for the College of Pharmacy and the School of Nursing. Purdue estimates construction will cost $160 million with $89 million requested from the state. The university says the 10-year plan identifies priorities for near-, mid- and long-term facility needs. “In order to achieve these goals, Purdue has adopted a balanced capital program approach that considers facility renovations first, facility replacements where appropriate and the addition of new space only when needed,” said Jay Wasson, Purdue vice president for physical facilities. Other projects on the West Lafayette campus include a $77 million project to make chilled water enhancements to the HVAC system that helps cool buildings. No state funds are requested for this project. A water chiller project was also approved for both Purdue Northwest campuses in Westville and Hammond. Purdue is also planning for a $15 million Energetics Research Lab on the West Lafayette campus. This project will construct a building to “fabricate, test, detect, deploy and defeat” next-generation energetic materials used in modern weapons systems. Also on Friday, the trustees approved the renaming of the Academic Success Center to honor Helen Bass Williams, the first African American professor at Purdue University. Williams, who worked at Purdue from 1968-78, helped create the African American studies program.