“The students will love it,” MSU Trustee Joel Ferguson said. “They get the state police off their campus and the university gets the property back – so the university is excited about it, too.”

The new headquarters will consist of one building located at Grand Avenue and Kalamazoo Street, said Edward Woods III, spokesman for the Department of Management and Budget.

The state police headquarters is located in three buildings across from Breslin Center on 714 S. Harrison Road. Ferguson said once the university gets the space back, the MSU Board of Trustees will discuss how it will be used.

Before the decision, Sen. Cameron Brown, R-Sturgis, addressed the board in opposition to the project, calling it “ill-advised.”

“What is unsuitable for the state police is apparently adequate for the MSU police,” Brown said.

Brown said the new site, which was owned by Ferguson, was forced upon the state and other sites could have been used for the project to succeed.

MSU plans to demolish two of the buildings occupied by the state police, which were both more than 75 years old, he said. The buildings require $2.3 million in repairs, and the state spends $340,000 annually to maintain them.

“This is a win for MSU in trying to get their facility back that they’ve requested for quite some time to expand for academic purposes, parking and their Department of Public Safety,” Woods said.

The building on the southeast corner of the state police’s current complex may be occupied by MSU police or the East Lansing Police Department.

MSU police Chief Jim Dunlap said the facility has undergone additions and remodeling and is an improved location from where the department is currently located at 87 Red Cedar Road. That facility a be used for academics if the department were to move, he said.

East Lansing police Chief Tom Wibert said the department has made no plans to move any of its operations into the facility but will study the possibility.

Dunlap said Brown may not have made a fair assessment of the project because of the difference in size of the MSU and state police forces.

“Our needs with 100 or so employees are different than what they have, so it’s difficult to even compare,” he said.

Brown said the project has seen public rebuke across Michigan because of the state budget.

“At a time when our state budget is so tight we have to lay off troopers and park the cars of those still on duty to save gas, what message are we sending to the taxpayers of Michigan by approving a brand-new $45 million headquarters?” he said.

The project will not have an immediate impact on the state’s budget, Woods said. The new headquarters won’t be completed for about two years, impacting the state’s budget as soon as the 2009 fiscal year.

The state won’t start paying the 25-year lease-to-own contract for the headquarters until they move into the buildings, Woods said.

State police Col. Peter Munoz said location was not as important to him as the work outside and within the walls of whatever building the state police uses.

“I can work out of a tent if I have to,” he said. “As far as the state police goes, the real work gets done by the troopers who are out on the road.”

New headquarters would improve flexibility in office space, he said. The thick walls at the building being used makes wiring adjustments difficult, he said.

Ferguson said the project would help the state budget by bringing more than 500 additional state employees to the 148,000-square-foot facility.

If costs to build the new headquarters exceeds its budget, they will be covered by Ferguson and co-developer Gary Granger.

_Craig Trudell can be reached at trudell6@msu.edu