The groundbreaking ceremony for the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact is set for March 2 at 1 p.m. near the construction site at 1399 Franklin Blvd. across the street behind the Lokey Science Complex.
UO President Michael Schill; chair of the UO Board of Trustees, Chuck Lillis; and acting executive director of the Knight Campus and professor of biology, Patrick Phillips, are slated to speak at the ceremony. They will be joined by representatives of the construction and architecture teams.
The Knight Campus project was announced in October of 2016 and is scheduled to open in 2020.
This announcement follows an update from Phillips in January which included the approval of $50 million in funding from the Oregon State Legislature and further development of the Knight Campus Internship Program.
The $50 million in approved funds is the first wave of a $110 million bond request. Phil and Penny Knight donated $500 million to the estimated $1 billion project in October of 2016.
In the announcement via AroundtheO, Schill said, “We launched the Knight Campus more than a year ago with the generosity of Phil and Penny Knight. Now, our dedication takes physical shape, as we put shovel to soil and start to build. The University of Oregon, the community, region and state will benefit for generations.”