Construction is reaching completion as major campus sites expect to wrap up by the year’s end.
University Engineer Bob Nestle said the completion of the Biomedical Physical Science Building and Breslin Center addition, both expected to be done in December, and Shaw Hall’s scheduled re-opening in June, may mark the beginning of a slowdown in campus construction.
Nestle said MSU has seen an increase in construction for roughly the past five years.
“It has a lot to do with the state funding and projects funded by private donations and research grants,” he said. “When all these things come together, we get a lot of construction.”
Soon, Nestle said Michigan’s slowing economy will result in state-funded projects slowing down.
“We always have construction, it just goes through cycles,” he said.
MSU has seven projects in the works, Nestle said.
An addition to the eastern side of Breslin Center will provide new facilities to the men’s and women’s basketball teams.
“They will be adding an auxiliary gym and new basketball offices,” Nestle said.
The Biomedical Physical Science Building looms large on the south side of campus - encompassing 360,000 square feet.
“It is a huge building,” Nestle said. “When the folks move in, they will completely vacate Physics-Astronomy and most of Giltner.”
Wolfgang Bauer, chairperson of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, said some of the faculty may be nostalgic toward the old building, but he is excited to move into more spacious, air-conditioned confines.
“We were cramped way beyond capacity,” he said. “If you have ever taken a summer class in the physics building, you know it is hotter than heck.
“People would literally fall asleep in the labs.”
The new building will offer Ethernet ports at each seat in its lecture halls and more space for demonstrations, classroom space and a library.
“If there is any fun to be found in a physics lecture, it is the lecture demonstration,” Bauer said. “If you have an actual physical device that shows the principals, that is a better illumination of the concepts.”
Renovations to Shaw Hall will also focus on improving student-used space, said Gerald Kubica, a university construction manager who is overseeing the hall’s renovation.
Kubica said the building, which was built to serve the needs of returning servicemen in the 1950s, will be updated to meet the electrical needs of current students.
“Electrical usage by students in a dormitory is dramatically up,” he said. “Fifty years ago, nobody even heard of a computer in a dormitory.”
Bathrooms, ventilation and smoke detection and fire sprinkling systems will also be updated or added. Rooms will be outfitted with loftable furniture next June.
“Shaw initiated the tremendous construction boom after World War II,” he said. “Now that Shaw Hall is 50 years old, it was time for a major renovation.”
