IU plans for IT building

IU's Information Technology is planning to build a new home at 11th and Walnut Grove streets, which will house the core of IU's computing and information technology infrastructure.\nThe board of trustees' facilities committee will interview four architectural firms today for the job of designing the building, to be named the Computation and Information Building.\nThe new addition will have no classrooms but instead will be filled with 160,000 square feet of computing support operations, all of the campus technical computer equipment as well as the pervasive computing labs. \n"It is part of our initiative to promote Informatics," Facilities Committee Chair and Trustee Peter Obremsky said. "It will benefit the School of Informatics and the campus at large."\nIn addition, Vice President Michael McRobbie's Department of Information Technology will find its new home there, in a move that Obremsky calls "very necessary."\n"Our current facilities are outdated and outmoded," Obremsky said. "This new building will provide the necessary space and technology to advance our programs."\nThe architectural design of the building will be the subject of the meeting today. Obremsky noted that there definitely won't be any more "I. M. Pei buildings" to contrast with the campus' architecture.\n"The specific architectural style is not settled at this point but the design must be compatible with the rest of the IUB campus," IU's chief administrative officer J. Terry Clapacs said. \nThe firms being interviewed are the Smith Group from Washington D.C.; Shepley, Bullfinch, Richardson and Abbot from Boston, Mass.; Flad and Associates from Madison, Ind.; and Buyer, Blinder, Belle and Associates from New York, NY. \nJohn Belle of Buyer, Blinder, Belle and Associates designed the Kelley School of Business' new graduate building and the Multidisciplinary Science building, which the trustees recently approved for construction. \nClapacs said the new building has been planned for a year and a half and will cost as much as $40 million. None of the funding will come from state funds. Private sources such as gifts and grants will financially support the project. \nObremsky said bonds may be issued.\n"With Informatics being a hot investment for the state's economy and for the University, we should be able to attract considerable interest," Obremsky said.\nKaren Adams, chief of staff of the Office of the VP for Information Technology, said the new computing building will not be completed any time soon. \n"Hopefully it will be finished in the next three to five years," she said. "We are trying to look for the architects and get as much done while we are fundraising"