This map shows planned new construction and landscaping in the University of Kansas Central District, the area northwest of 19th Street and Naismith Drive.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, even when it comes to multimillion-dollar higher ed construction funding deals.

A University of Kansas deal that angered and worried some state legislators last year got a decidedly different reception from leaders in the public-private partnership, or P3, industry. KU’s $350 million Central District redevelopment project was a finalist for the 2016 P3 Awards, an international competition organized by the London-based industry publication, P3 Bulletin.

The Central District was one of five finalists in the competition’s Best Social Infrastructure Project category. Ultimately, KU did not win, being beat out by California’s Long Beach Civic Center and Port Headquarters Project, and a runner-up, Mexico’s International Museum of Baroque Art.

The Bulletin touted the awards, bestowed in the fall, as “an opportunity to show the best in P3” and “recognize the hard work that has gone on to maintain a pipeline of deals making a real difference to how ordinary people live their lives.” Wrote publisher Amanda Nicholls: “The P3 industry across all regions can sometimes be turbulent…Which projects have overcome challenges to get over the line? Which companies have shown innovation to help shape the industry?”

P3 Bulletin currently lists about 30 university P3 projects in progress nationwide, with KU’s being the only one in Kansas. Construction is underway now on a new science building, student union, parking garage, residence hall and apartment complex in the area between 19th Street and Irving Hill Road. All should be complete by summer 2018.

“We are proud to have developed a unique public-private partnership model that allows us to undertake a large amount of construction at one time in a cost-effective way, and without any additional state funding,” Jim Modig, university architect and director of KU Design and Construction Management, said in a statement from KU.

After the Kansas Board of Regents approved the Central District plan, some lawmakers became upset, saying KU should have waited to get legislative approval before embarking on a complex funding strategy that borrowed money from an out-of-state public finance agency.

The Central District P3 involves a lease-sublease agreement between KU and the KU Campus Development Corporation (KUCDC), a Kansas nonprofit corporation created to enable the deal. KUCDC obtained bonds to finance construction from the Wisconsin Public Finance Authority, and KU will make annual sublease payments for the facilities to KUCDC using a variety of revenue sources. U.S. Bank is the bond trustee. Edgemoor Infrastructure and Real Estate LLC will oversee the project from development to maintenance.

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Watch a year’s worth of construction in less than two minutes: About a year in, Central District construction has already transformed that part of campus. Check out this time-lapse video of the project, as seen from Daisy Hill looking down on the site: https://app.oxblue.com/open/clarkconstruction/kucddp

Here are two more videos, shot from the Oliver Hall area looking uphill at the new apartment complex and residence hall: https://app.oxblue.com/open/cbgbc/kup3housing

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• I’m the Journal-World’s KU and higher ed reporter. See all the newspaper’s KU coverage here. Reach me by email at sshepherd@ljworld.com, by phone at 832-7187, on Twitter @saramarieshep or via Facebook at Facebook.com/SaraShepherdNews.