The Measurement, Materials and Sustainable Environment Center, shown in this artist rendering, is slated to provide 36,690 square feet of laboratory and support areas just east of Burt Hall and south of Learned Hall, near the corner of 15th Street and Naismith Drive.

Burgeoning efforts to produce and evaluate biofuels, improve commercial avionics, and sense the movements of glaciers and ice sheets soon will have a new place to call home.

All in a new building designed to test and showcase sustainable, energy-saving technologies.

The $18.8 million project — to be known as the Measurement, Materials and Sustainable Environment Center, or M2SEC for short — is slated to provide 36,690 square feet of laboratory and support areas just east of Burt Hall, covering open space directly across 15th Street from the law school.

The federal government announced Friday that the project would receive $12.3 million and be completed by spring 2012. KU will be responsible for coming up with $6.5 million.

Stuart Bell, dean of engineering, said that the federal money — made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — would make it easier to secure the private donations the school has been working on for more than a year.

“This certainly gives us the ability to go and say, this project is really going to happen,” Bell said.

The building itself will incorporate sustainable features, including reflected sunlight for illumination, solar shades for temperature control and a “green” roof to capture carbon and provide insulation.

The federal money is part of the more than $123 million in awards to 11 public universities and nonprofit research organizations announced Friday by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce.