Facilities for the Future
by Vice President Gavin Leach

The Finance and Administration Division has been busy looking at the future facility plans for Northern. There are currently several initiatives being worked on or considered, and I wanted to be sure that the campus community has the most up-to-date information regarding these ideas. Please keep in mind that the details outlined for most of these projects are quite preliminary and as such should be considered fluid. However, as final decisions are made, the campus will be informed through periodic Campus Connect updates.

The initiatives are the adaptive reuse of Gries Hall, new housing opportunities for Quad I and the Summit/Center Street apartments, an addition and facelift to the University Center and updating McClintock and adding new space for the College of Business.

Let me give you an overview of each project.

Adaptation of Gries Hall: Work has begun on the side of Gries Hall that faces Seventh Street. This is where the new Beaumier Alumni Welcome and U.P. Heritage Center will be located as of the spring. This project is the result of a $1 million gift from alumnus Dr. John Beaumier (his second $1 million gift to NMU). In addition to the new welcome center space, the NMU Alumni Office and the Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center, both currently located in Cohodas, will move into the new facility. The east wing of Gries Hall (the one with the Health Center) will be torn down, but the plan is to move some of the academic departments currently housed in Cohodas into the remaining wing, which would move them closer to the academic core.

Subsequently, the Psychology Department will move to New Science. This was a move that was made possible with the completion of Jamrich Hall as Psychology will take over the space vacated when the Math and Computer Science Department moved into Jamrich.

With the east wing of Gries being demolished, the NMU Health Center will be combined with the NMU Counseling and Consultation Center on the second floor of Cohodas. The Counseling Center was recently moved under the oversight of Dr. Dave Luoma, chief physician at the Health Center, so the relocation will enable the departments to gain even more operational efficiencies in the reception and admitting areas. It also moves the departments into a professional building with easy access and ample parking to serve clients.

The demolition of Gries' east wing will reduce NMU's square footage by 30,000 feet and eliminate at least $2 million of deferred maintenance. It also reduces the annual operational and utility costs by about $40,000 per year.

Revamping Housing: We are currently looking to develop a public-private partnership (PPP) for Quad I residence halls (built in 1964) and the Summit/Center Street apartments (built in 1958). These facilities are dated and hurt us in the student recruitment process. A PPP is where a university partners with a private developer to finance, design, construct and maintain student housing on university owned property. Many universities are taking this approach. The benefits of this approach are:

The developer provides financing for a capital project, which limits the impact on the university's debt capacity. The university receives a return on the investment, which it will use to support student life operations. NMU will retain oversight of the student life activities. Private developers have more flexibility in how they can deliver the construction as compared to the university, resulting in lower overall construction costs. In recent discussions with a private developer, the numbers shared were comparable to the square foot renovation cost of the Quad II residence halls. The operational, utility and maintenance costs are the responsibility of the developer. The end result is modern, attractive housing for our students with limited monetary investment by the university.

We have sent out Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to developers for proposals about the possible replacement of the Summit/Center Street apartments with up to 200-400 beds and of Quad I residence halls with up to 1,200 beds. As we evaluate the results of this type of partnership, there is the potential to expand the project to include the replacement of West and Spooner Halls. If we pursue this initiative, the Marketplace location – which is our main dining facility - will need to be discussed.

Updating the University Center: As you may have heard President Erickson say in several of his recent presentations, the outdatedness of the University Center is hurting us in recruiting students. We are exploring the costs to give this facility, built in 1959 and last renovated in 1996, a facelift. Ideally, we would like to give it an addition that would be a new, vibrant regional conference center with the capacity for events that seat up to 900 people. Our students have been asking for a space that would seat about 1,000 in order to help them be able to bring bigger named speakers and performers to NMU.

One version of the plan proposes this addition be located in the space between the U.C. and Spooner Hall. The U.C. renovation would also include creating a dynamic area for student organization offices and activities. The project would put new exterior façade along three sides of the facility and from the Lee Drive side, which is one of our main entrances to campus.

Academic Teaching and Business Innovation Center: The College of Business has wanted a building that could feature more modern business-like components and to move their faculty into the academic core for quite a while, so we've been looking at a number of potential options. NMU also has a need to upgrade the aging McClintock Building. Aligning these two goals developed into the concept of the "Academic Teaching and Business Innovation Center," which was moved into the No. 2 spot on Northern's capital outlay request to the state. This is actually a modified version of a previous capital outlay proposal. It incorporates some of the previous request items regarding McClintock, but might have a greater chance of being funded since it now addresses more than maintenance. Although on NMU's capital outlay request list, the university also will continue to pursue private funding for this project.

The capital outlay project list is required to be submitted annually, along with Northern's Five-Year Facilities Master Plan to the State of Michigan in early November. Our current capital outlay project remains the Learning Resource Center renovation, which would transform the "library" built in 1966 into a state-of-the-art, high-tech instructional support hub and learning resource center. You can read more about that proposal, which has been on the capital outlay request list for a number of years, on page 77 of the 2014 Five-Year Facilities Master Plan submitted to the state last year.

We've also been approached by the City of Marquette about property on Wright Street as a possible site for relocation of the city's public works/service center, which must be moved from its current location due to the sale of city property to Duke LifePoint for the new hospital. The Northern property is one of several being considered by city officials. We expect to know more about the city's plans for that facility before the end of the calendar year.

I know these are a lot of proposals to digest and the details are far from comprehensive. However, this overview is meant to provide the NMU community with a broad understanding of the possible facility changes that could take place in the next 1-3 years. I want to thank the Engineering and Planning staff, along with the Facilities Operation staff members, for all of the work they've put into conceptualizing these ideas. If you have questions about any of these proposals, please email them to me at gleach@nmu.edu.

Gavin Leach
Vice President, Finance and Administration