By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
State money will give a boost to Bowling Green State University’s plans for a new home for the College of Technology, Architecture & Applied Engineering.
The biennial budget approved in December allocates $16 million to build an Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering Innovation Center.
The project has been in a state of flux. The original plan, for which the Board of Trustees approved funding in early 2019, called for the thorough renovation of the existing facility, which was built in 1971.
In a recent interview President Rodney Rogers said that when the project was studied it was determined that renovation would not be cost effective.
“The facility isn’t in great shape to begin with,” he said. BGSU decided to expand the Park Avenue facility, a renovated warehouse that houses architecture, and to make room for construction management. That brings together the two programs in the School of the Built Environment. Now the College of Technology building would be housing fewer programs.
Those programs encompass the Department of Engineering Technology, including Aviation Studies, the Department of Visual Communications and Technology Education, and related graduate programs. The question was: “What are we going to do that makes sense for BGSU?”
The decision was to build the new technology center. This was deemed “the most prudent use.” Building new would be more economical than renovating, Rogers said, and that was before COVID-19.
“Now we’re even thinking in post-COVID what kind of facility we really need,” he said.
As originally conceived much of the space will be used for large, flexible state-of-the-art labs. But certain types of classrooms may no longer fit, particularly large lecture halls where the professor is 500 yards away from some students. “I don’t know if those exist in a post COVID world,” Rogers said.
The decision to rethink the technology project was made in 2019.
At that point $5.2 million in state capital funds intended for the renovation were directed toward an expansion of the Park Avenue facility. The design team working on the technology renovation redirected their efforts to the Park Avenue expansion. That project is slated for completion by this fall.
Also $6.3 million in state funding was spent on infrastructure needed to support the College of Technology program, Chief Financial Officer Sheri Stoll told university trustees in May 2019. That includes tunnel top replacement, heat plant controls, central chilled water manufacturing, centralized emergency power generation, electrical service upgrades, and building security related upgrades. These benefit not only the project but also other buildings in that section of campus.
Rogers said that the $16 million in state capital funds will not be enough to build the new facility. “The equipment is very expensive, so it’s not just construction, it’s the lab equipment,” he said.
“We’ll probably have to do private fundraising. Anymore that’s the nature of the beast.”
The programs the center will house tend to attract corporate support, Rogers said. Owens-Corning recently gave BGSU $1 million for scholarships in the School of Built Environment to assist students from underrepresented groups.
The state appropriated funds specifically to support advanced manufacturing, engineering, and applied science.
These are programs, Rogers said, that have growing enrollment and that meet the needs of society. “We really are going to be very intentional in investing in those facilities that support those programs.”
