CONWAY — The University of Central Arkansas is preparing to embark on a $17.5 million renovation and expansion of its Lewis Science Center, a facility built almost a half century ago and expanded nearly three decades ago.

UCA President Tom Courtway said he hopes to break ground on the project this fall and for the expanded center to open for the spring 2017 semester.

“It’s a long construction project,” Courtway said. “It’s the most complex academic building you can build.”

When UCA built the center in 1965, it was a 53,000-square-foot, single-story structure.

In 1987, the school expanded it with a 62,000-square-foot, two-story addition.

Plans now call for a 50,000-square-foot, three-story addition thatwill include teaching, learning and research space. Laboratory spaces will allow for modern equipment that extends from the floor to the ceiling. The design also will feature better equipment and energy use with LEED certification. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a designation awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Most agree the science center is outdated, especially for students and professors in a field as rapidly changing as research and technology.

“We’ve been working toward this project for a long time. … For us to stay ahead of the curve in terms of science instruction, research and community service, we absolutely must have upgraded facilities,” Steven Runge, provost and vice president for academic affairs, said in a news release.

In approving the expansion recently, the board of trustees also agreed to put a new roof on the current building.

UCA will f inance the project in part with $13.5 million in bonds funded by a $3.50 increase in the student facility fee of $9 per credit hour to make the total fee $12.50 per hour, UCA spokesman Fredricka Sharkey said. The school also will use $4 million from its capital reserves.

After the new wing opens, the university will embark on a three-phase renovation of the existing building, Courtway said.

School leaders had hoped to build an entirely new science center. The revised plan, though, allows for a larger facility - about 165,000 square feet - while being much less expensive.

Diane Newton, vice president for finance and administration, said costs cited to build a new facility of about 100,000 square feet were just too high. “At one time, there was $110 million thrown out there,” she said. Another time, she said, “We talked to the board about a much smaller [all-new] building, and that would have been $70 million.”

Money wasn’t the only consideration, she said.

“Part of it was where were we going to put this building?” Newton said. “If it really needs to be whereit’s currently sitting … what [would] we do with the folks who were in there” while construction is underway?

“The faculty does a marvelous job … in a building that is old and quite frankly antiquated,” Courtway said. “We need new laboratories, and we need upgraded facilities. That’s what we’ll have when” the project is completed.

Sometimes, he said, students had better laboratory space in their high schools than they do at UCA.

Courtway said UCA’s science program has “always been one of our strengths. But obviously these buildings will build onto that and attract more students, we hope.”

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 03/10/2014