The Oregon State Board of Higher Education’s Finance and Administration Committee reviewed two University capital improvement projects and discussed funding for the Oregon University System’s new Life Sciences Collaborative Complex Friday.
At the meeting, the board authorized the University to spend $4 million on the renovation of the University’s Computing Center. Though the money will not come directly from the state, the University still needed board approval of “expenditure limitations,” or asking the state to allow an additional $4 million to be tacked onto its operating budget. The project aims to modernize the nearly 50-year-old computing facility, which serves as the primary central computer server to the University.
Calls for increased server space to support research and academic efforts preempted the state’s decision, along with requests from information services personnel for electrical, cooling and structural upgrades.
University Vice President for Finance and Administration Frances Dyke said the expenditure limitation does not translate to greater state funding, but simply state authorization for the school to use its own resources.
“A $4 million expenditure limitation means we can spend up to $4 million on the project … (and) does not represent any commitment of funds from either the state board or the legislature,” Frances said. “For this project, it is up to the UO to find the funds.”
For this project, $1.2 million of the renovation’s price tag will come from grant-related revenues, while $2.8 million will come from the University’s general revenues, funding for which comes out of student tuition. However, Dyke said that tuition will not be increased for funding.
“We will be using reserves that have been set aside for this project,” Dyke said. “The reserves are part or our unrestricted or ‘general’ revenue pools.”
Don Harris, University’s vice-provost for information services, said the renovation will upgrade the center’s data processing capabilities in addition to supplementing the building’s safety measures.
“The project about to begin will allow for a major enhancement to the electrical capacity to the building, machine room cooling and uninterruptable power supply capability,” Harris said. “During this project, asbestos abatement will also be addressed, as well as seismic bracing in the machine room.”
Data storage for anything from student records to Blackboard infrastructure is all handled by Information Services. The renovation is necessary to support an increase in campus computing needs, Dyke said.
“The computing center is not adequate to meet the administrative and research computing needs of the campus,” Dyke said. “Renovations to the existing building is just phase one of infrastructure improvements the university will be making to support administrative and research computing.”
The higher education board also heard a report on construction plans for a new inter-institutional science complex along the Willamette River in Portland’s South Waterfront development area.
The Life Sciences Collaborative Complex will be funded with more than $100 million in state-issued bonds set to be sold by spring of next year, compounded with a total of $50 million from private donations and research investments. The OUS hopes the building’s doors will be opened to student and faculty from a consortium of half a dozen Oregon universities in fall 2014.
OUS spokesperson Diane Saunders said the University would be allowed to use the facility, but will not have as strong a presence as other, more science-oriented schools.
“(The) UO will (have) fairly limited involvement, not to the extent that PSU and OHSU and OSU will,” Saunders said.
The approximately 262,300 square-foot building is slated to be the first construction on OHSU’s new Schnitzer Campus, and will house OHSU’s medical school, Oregon State’s pharmacy school and PSU’s biology and chemistry departments. Once constructed, the complex will welcome visiting professors from other Oregon universities, including the Oregon Institute of Technology, to come and work in everything from incubation labs to medical device and diagnostic centers.
What the OUS is touting as a “collaborative learning environment” will incorporate medical, life science, engineering and pharmacy facilities where student can research the evolution of medicine, cures and health care devices. These academic units will be shared by students and faculty of multiple universities, who will be able to tip-toe from classrooms to research laboratories within the same city block.
Investment capital has also come from members of Oregon’s health care industry, including the Oregon Biosciences Association, the Oregon Translational Research and Drug Institute, and the Oregon Clinical and Translational Research Institute. As compensation for funding from these key partners, private research space will be set aside to foster business in biosciences.
Calls for the building’s construction have come in the wake of Oregon’s significant growth in biosciences since 2002. According to a recent EcoNorthwest study, bioscience research at select OUS universities has grown 35-40 percent, and bioscience companies have grown at a similar rate. As a result, the state has agreed to foot a large portion of the complex’s construction bill because of its potential to bolster employment, state payroll and sales for Oregon companies.
The board also authorized the University to spend $1.9 million on the purchase of a Glenwood development property, east of the I-5 bridge in Springfield. This 4.17-acre property will be purchased from the Oregon Department of Administrative Services for $1.83 million, including an additional $70,000 for closing and transaction costs. The University plans to use the land in a number of ways, including a park-and-ride location for campus commuters, a remote storage location for student vehicles, a mixed-use development of retail, commercial and housing in partnership with the city of Springfield, or a shared facility for fleet management.
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OUS discusses funding for new Life Sciences Collaborative Complex, slated to open in 2014
Daily Emerald
November 8, 2010
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