NEWS

Clemson trustees OK new building across from Bowman Field

Ron Barnett
rbarnett@greenvillenews.com

CLEMSON – The Clemson University board of trustees gave the green light Friday to moving ahead with plans to build a major new academic and multi-function building that would rise across from landmark Bowman Field.

The building, expected to cost between $120 million and $130 million, would house the College of Business and Behavioral Science and other academic programs now located in the 77-year-old Sirrine Hall.

Sirrine, one of the historic red-brick buildings on campus built in the 1930s under the WPA, will be used to provide temporary classroom and office space for programs that are to be moved to new buildings, according to Brett Dalton, vice president for finance and operations.

The new building is part of the biggest building boom in the university's history, said President Jim Clements. Other major projects include new dormitories and several new research and academic buildings on campus and in other parts of the state.

In addition to housing programs at Sirrine Hall, the new building will provide flexible space for research and outreach programs, learning labs and gathering places for collaboration among students, faculty, staff and business partners, Dalton said.

"This facility will truly be a university facility," Dalton said of the new building, which is yet to be named.

It also will provide more space for students to study, one of the initiatives incoming student body president Shannon Kay told the board is among her priorities.

The university plans to undertake a capital campaign to raise some of the money to build it, and the rest would come from state institution bonds, which would be paid back by university money generated primarily by student tuition and fees.

The plan is to have the new facility completed by summer 2018.

The board approved the project in concept, although its action didn't authorize spending money yet for design and planning.

The move comes at a time when Clemson's finances, even amid the major construction projects already underway, are solid, according to bond rating services.

Dalton told the board that Moody's just updated the university's bond rating at AA2. Clemson is the smallest university with that high a rating, he said, and fewer than 20 of the 206 institutions of higher education that Moody's rates have higher marks.

Trustee Smyth McKissick, chairman of the university's Will to Lead capital campaign, announced that the drive has raised $911.5 million toward its $1 billion goal.

In other action, the board also approved a new Sales Engineering Certificate, a nine credit-hour collaborative program for undergraduate students in the marketing department and the industrial engineering department;

And it approved a new Risk Engineering and Systems Analytic Center. The center aims to be a leading national resource to integrate interdisciplinary research in risk-related science and engineering to improve the understanding of risks from natural and manmade phenomena, mitigate their effects and to better prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters.

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