$75 million biotech building request approved

The Central Michigan University Board of Trustees approved a state appropriation request of $75 million for a biotechnology building at Thursday’s meeting.

University President Michael Rao was unsure if that money would come from the national economic stimulus package.

“It’s a possibility and it’s a hope, but we are not yet sure at this point,” he said.

Biomedical sciences is one of President Obama’s major agenda items, Rao said.

“We think the timing is just right to make this submittal. It will obviously complement and support the medical education program,” he said.

The building would replace Brooks Hall.

“Brooks is older… (and) when you are trying to vent out fumes in an older building, its harder,” Rao said. “We are doing out very best to make that building as safe as possible but it would make us all feel comfortable if students are in a new facility.”

The biotechnology building will be built between the new education building and the industrial engineering and technology building.

Colleges of Health, Science get new equipment

The Central Michigan University Board of Trustees approved the purchase of two high tech pieces of academic equipment at Thursday’s meeting.

A gas chromatograph mass spectrometer will replace obsolete models in the College of Science and Technology at a cost not to exceed $280,000.

The chromatograph will provide students and faculty to work research hydrocarbons and chlorinated compounds.

A neruro kinetics clinical rotary chair is headed to the Audiology Clinic in the Carls Center in the College of Health Professions.

The chair will provide clinical and assessment treatment for hearing balance disorders. The cost for the chair is not to exceed $221,000.

Deed Restriction set for Special Olympics lot

The Central Michigan University Board of Trustees on Thursday approved a deed restriction on property located at 1120 South Mission Street.

The property comprises a section of the Special Olympics building’s parking lot.

President Rao now is authorized to sign a restriction prohibiting the construction of multi-family dwellings on the site and the digging of wells except under given circumstances.

CMU received the land as a grant in 1988.

Initially, part of the land was contaminated and the university collaborated with the Michigan Department of Transportation to clean it up.

Once the restriction goes through, a closure report will be issued on the site, and CMU will have no further obligations with its remediation.

“This really is in the university’s best interest to have this deed restriction so that for all practical purposes, this property cannot be used for anything other than what it was designed to be used for,” Rao said at the meeting.

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