The recent economic downturn has produced an unexpected benefit at the Kansas University School of Engineering.
With building contractors apparently nervous about the certainty of future work orders, bids for the school's new building came in lower than expected. That will allow construction which had been delayed because of fund-raising difficulties to begin in the next month.
An addition to the School of Engineering, shown in this architect's drawing, will be built south of the current Learned Hall. Groundbreaking is set for next month, and the building should open in fall 2003.
"I'm very pleased," Dean Carl Locke said. "It's hard for me to keep my elation inside. I spent a lot of time worrying about this and trying to get it done."
There were times when it appeared the 80,000-square-foot structure, which will be south of Learned Hall, wouldn't be built.
Fund raising and architectural work began in 1994. With an addition at Murphy Hall and renovation at Joseph R. Pearson Hall higher on KU's priority list, university officials decided to construct the projected $16.5 million building with private funds.
Work on the project was halted in 2000 when officials had difficulty raising the remaining $3 million for the project. But a combination of new gifts received in the last month and bids now at $15 million will allow ground to be broken in the next month.
The project should be completed in about 18 months, in time to be open for fall 2003.
The three-story building, which will be connected to Learned Hall with a second-story walkway, will most benefit the electrical engineering and computer science department, whose departmental office and faculty offices will be in the new building.
Now, the department's office is in Snow Hall, and faculty offices are in Snow, Learned and Nichols halls.
"It's hard to get a faculty to interact and collaborate with one another when they never see each other," said Scott Hinton, the department's chairman.
There will be about 35 faculty offices and about a dozen instructional labs in the building.
It also will have a 230-seat multimedia classroom that will be named for Charles E. and Mary Jane Spahr, who gave $1 million to the project.
Charles Spahr was the former head of Standard Oil Co. The engineering library also is named for the Spahrs.
The dean's office will be relocated from the 120,000-square-foot Learned Hall to the first floor of the new building, near the main entrance another amenity Locke said he looks forward to.
"Learned Hall has a lot of doors, but it doesn't have an entrance," Locke said.
Locke will step down at the end of the semester after 16 years as dean.
"When I announced to my faculty and staff (in October) that I'd be leaving the dean's position," he said, "I said this was the only thing nagging at me not being finished with the funding of this building."
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