Nearly 10 months after ground was first broken at the site, construction progress continues as expected at the Bott Building for Nursing Education and Research, university officials said yesterday.
The foundation at the site is in the process of being poured, and the building should be ready for occupation in October 2012, university engineer Bob Nestle said.
Upon completion, the $17.6 million facility is expected to provide additional space for programs related to MSU’s College of Nursing operations. College officials said the building will combine both classroom and office space over multiple levels.
Granger Construction Company will handle all work related to the building, slated to occupy an area of Bogue Street, south of Service Road.
The facility’s construction comes as MSU looks to provide additional resources to address the state’s shortage of qualified nurses.
“The Bott Building will be a nucleus for where the nursing community … can come together and influence health care,” MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon said in a statement.
The 50,000-square-foot building will be Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, gold certified by the U.S. Green Building Council, the third MSU building to receive the certification.
In addition to expanding the College of Nursing, the building also will be the first at MSU to utilize a new, ground-source geothermal heating and cooling system.
The system — made of a horizontal field of piping placed under a nearby sports field — will transfer geothermal energy from the ground for use in the building.
Water from the geothermal system should stay at a steady temperature of 55 degrees throughout the year, keeping buildings warm in the winter and cooler in the summer, said Mark Haslam, the project’s design representative.
“Basically, it’s a forced air system like any building on campus,” Haslam said.
Officials with the Physical Plant say the geothermal system is a significantly less expensive alternative to connecting to the university’s existing steam services.
“The nice thing about that over there is there’s a fair amount of vacant land close to the building,” Nestle said of the decision to use the system. “In many construction sites on campus, you just don’t have that option.”
Nestle said the geothermal system also will use significantly less energy than any other alternative form of campus power and should be relatively easy to install.
The project remains on budget, Haslam said.
“We just tried to make the most energy-efficient shape we could,” he said. “We got the most building for the money we have.”
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