Science building proposal under review

An initial proposal to build an about $60 million Multidisciplinary Science Building (MSB), designed to run the latest technology for scientific research, is currently under review by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.\nIf the commission makes a positive recommendation, the proposal will be included with other capital requests IU will submit to the General Assembly. \nIn his State of the University speech to the campus Tuesday, IU President Myles Brand called the new building IU's top capital priority going into budget negotiations with the state legislature.\nBrand said the idea for the science building has been around for a few years.\n"I think over the last 12 months the idea's matured," Brand said. "People began working on it and most importantly we saw an opportunity for state support."\nLisa Pratt, associate dean for research with the College of Arts and Sciences and chair of the MSB steering committee, said the proposed new building came out of a grassroots movement among faculty, due to a shared need for high-quality research space.\n"The underlying problem is that instrumentation in the sciences has become very complex," Pratt said. "At the same time, it's become very precise because of the nature of the instruments. We don't have very many places on campus where instruments perform as well as they are designed to work."\nProblems with using the hi-tech instruments are due to the need for temperature control, humidity control, highly filtered air, minimal vibration and, in some cases, shielding from solar or man-made radiation. These specifications can't be regulated in most of IU's science buildings, the majority of which were constructed during the 1950s and 60s, Pratt said.\nFaculty from both the social and laboratory sciences have pulled together in support of the new building. The steering committee is made of faculty members from the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs in addition to representatives from the IU Architects office and campus engineers. The group is working on technology required for the building and is also developing a futuristic design. \n"We don't simply want to solve current technology problems," Pratt said. "We want a building that will put us in a position for the next 10 to 20 (years) of having a truly outstanding facility, one that other people would look to as a plan of how you enhance instrumentation and how you change a culture from traditional discipline-based research to collaborative Multidisciplinary-based research."\nThe building aims to be multidisciplinary not just in name, but in every sense of the word. Pratt said having a centralized building for hi-tech laboratory work will pull all the science departments together for joint research endeavors.\n"It's really important philosophically that this building looks at the needs of scientists regardless of what school they're in," Pratt said. "We've put out a call to all faculty to have direct input to the steering committee through a document called 'Expressions of interest.' The document has a lot of very nice language about why this building, why now and why every faculty member should be involved in creating this environment for scientific research that is specific to the Bloomington community.\n"We don't have an engineering school and we don't have an (agriculture) school so we need to define the future of scientific research on this campus in a way that is consistent with our strengths."\nRequesting state money for the building will be done in two stages, attempting to acquire half the funds during this budgetary period and the remainder in the next. Sonja Johnson, executive assistant to the vice president for administration, said additional funding will be sought through gifts. Brand said the University will probably look for about $20 million in gift money. A proposal detailing plans and asking for the initial $30 million is currently at the Commission for Higher Education. \nMichael Baumgartner, associate commissioner for facility and financial affairs said the state commission looks at several aspects when making a recommendation. Among these are how long the building has been in the planning stages, future capital priorities, size and scope of the project and the need for the building in accordance with the mission of the institution. \nBrand said the building is in keeping with the theme of moving Indiana toward a 21st century economy.\n"IU has been well positioned to take advantage of that theme," Brand said. "On the capital side, we've made our first priority the science building."\nThe commission then puts together a list of recommendations for the State Budget Agency and the General Assembly.\n"The commission tries to determine which requests are most important right now," Baumgartner said, "and which ones might be able to wait when we put together our list of recommendations."\nIn February, Indiana's public institution will make their requests to the General Assembly. In the case of the building, the state can issue funding in the form of cash appropriation or in bonding authority, with the state paying the principal and interest payments on the bonds.\nThis year, colleges and universities around the state have made about $480 million in capital requests. During the last budgetary period, the state satisfied about $264 million in requests, the most money it has ever distributed. Baumgartner said he expects the General Assembly to appropriate less than this during this year's budget negotiations.\nFunding aside, one of the biggest challenges of supporting the building is finding a suitable location.\n"It's an important and hard question and I don't have the answer," Brand said. "But we will have to have the answer in a short time, in 30 days maybe, 60 days at most, because as we go forward to the legislature they're going to ask that question, too.\n"We're working hard to resolve that and there are three options that we've been considering. Talking about criteria, one of the criteria is proximity to the other science buildings because it's a multidisciplinary effort and we want scientists and students to be able to work together. Another criteria is the aesthetics of the campus. We are committed to having a beautiful campus; we've been successful for many years in large part thanks to Herman B Wells, and we'll do everything we can to make sure that remains intact."\nPratt said the University and steering committee are currently considering several specific sites, all within the "heart" of campus, between Third and Seventh streets. One of these possible areas is located behind the Chemistry Building, bounded by Rawles, Myers and Lindley Halls.\n"(The site) is very attractive because scientists of many of the largest departments could walk to the building within two or three minutes of their offices," she said.\nParts of the building will most likely be constructed underground, an aspect that will allow certain instruments shielding from radiation. Further specifics on the building site are being delayed until John Belle, the University planning architect, can make recommendations.\n"Architecturally, building underground gives us some flexibility in how much it impacts the skyline," Pratt said. "We don't have to have a skyscraper if we can drop part of the building below the ground surface."\nLast week, the steering committee and interested faculty braved a thunderstorm to meet with Brand, Vice President for Administration Terry Clapacs and Assistant Vice President of Facilities Robert Meadows.\n"They all sat around in their wet clothing for three hours eating pizza and talking about where the building should be, what the priorities were in selecting a site," Pratt said. "It was a meeting unlike any meeting I've ever been to; it represented such a broad spectrum of the community trying to solve a very complex problem: a big building, a building that serves very specific functions and a beautiful campus"