Purdue News
Purdue News
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November 22, 2002 Purdue OKs entrepreneurship center, IPFW student housingWEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The Purdue University Board of Trustees today (Friday, 11/22) awarded a contract to build an entrepreneurship center in Discovery Park and revised a plan to build a residence hall complex in Fort Wayne. Plans to build a $2.2 million, 11,400-square-foot golf training center and plans to complete phases III and IV of the ongoing Robert E. Heine Pharmacy Laboratory renovation project also were approved. The trustees also authorized naming two planned facilities. Kettlehut Construction Inc. of Lafayette was awarded the $5.7 million contract to build the 31,000-square-foot Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship in Discovery Park. Discovery Park, is Purdue's planned $100 million interdisciplinary research complex. The center will be a two-story structure designed for overhead walkways to connect to future buildings in the research complex. The project will include the construction of a 72-seat lecture room, a presentation room, several conference and break-out meeting rooms, a reception area and a cafe for use by the research complex's occupants. The center also will house activities for student entrepreneurship, a new ventures laboratory, an innovation realization laboratory and other entrepreneurial efforts. A second phase, to be built later, will provide space for entrepreneurial outreach efforts such as technology commercialization, technical information services and a technology development program to assist startup businesses. Construction is scheduled to begin before the end of this year. The project is being funded by a gift from the Burton D. Morgan Foundation. Namesake Burton D. Morgan, who established the foundation, received his Purdue degree in mechanical engineering in 1938. In 1992, the university awarded him an honorary doctorate in management. The Purdue alumnus, who now lives in Hudson, Ohio, has started 50 companies, including Morgan Adhesives, one of the world's largest producers of pressure-sensitive adhesives. Morgan is president of Basic Search Co., an idea-development firm, and an author who has written several books on entrepreneurism. Morgan also began sponsorship of the Burton D. Morgan Entrepreneurial Competition at Purdue in 1987 to help Purdue students develop an appreciation of the free market system and the role of the entrepreneur in a market economy. The entrepreneurship center is one four major centers planned for the Discovery Park. The others are the Birck Nanotechnology Center, the Bindley Bioscience Center and an e-enterprises center. The park will be developed on about 40 acres bounded by State Street on the north, Nimitz Drive on the south, Airport Road on the west and South Intramural Drive on the east. In other business, the trustees approved new plans to finance and build the $28 million Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne student housing project. Today's approval supersedes an earlier plan passed in February, which would have allowed a third-party developer, American Campus Communities, to construct and manage the facility. "The earlier approach had to be abandoned because financing costs were much higher than anticipated, and we were unable to secure insurance for the bond issue," said Kenneth P. Burns, Purdue's executive vice president and treasurer. "The new resolution to proceed with the project follows the conventional procedures for university projects. We will finance the project with a bond issue not to exceed $28 million, of which $3 million will come from gift funds." The IPFW plan calls for building a 220-unit, 568-bed student housing complex. Seven three-story residential, apartment-style buildings will accommodate the regional campus' growing full-time student enrollment. Between 1995 and 2001, the number of students grew from 4,782 to 5,786. Drives, walks and 580 parking spaces will be part of the project. Design Collaborative Inc. of Fort Wayne will provide architectural and engineering services. American Campus Communities, the third-party developer under the previous project plan, will be employed as a consultant in the planning and design under the current plan. The company will serve as manager of the housing complex when it is completed. Under the new plan, the gift funds must be in hand or pledged before Purdue advertises for bids. The gift funds will be used to either reduce the amount borrowed or to pay annual debt service. In the phases of the ongoing Heine Pharmacy Laboratory renovation project, existing spaces will be gutted and new research laboratories, faculty and student offices, and analytical labs will be constructed. New concrete block partitions, laboratory benches with electrical power, cold water and lines for gases, exhaust fume hoods and ductwork, and new lights also are part of the project. The work will be funded in part by $1.9 million from the National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health. The NIH has awarded Purdue almost $3 million to be used for renovating the pharmacy building. More than 20 laboratories used by student researchers in pharmacy, chemistry and biology will be upgraded. Gilbralter Design of Indianapolis will provide architectural services for these two phases of the renovation project, which is expected to be completed in 2005. The trustees also approved proceeding with the $2.2 million, 11,400-square-foot golf training center. The center will feature an indoor putting green, a swing-analysis video computer system and multiple heated hitting bays and will be built next fall at Purdue's 36-hole Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex. Other areas of the facility include team locker rooms, a lounge, coaches' offices, a pro shop and a classroom. The architectural design will be similar to the clubhouse and other facilities at the course. The center will be open to the public when not in use by Purdue golf teams. Keystone Architecture Inc. of Lafayette will provide design and engineering services. Tom Spurgeon, of Peoria Heights, Ill., contributed the lead donation of almost $750,000 for the golf center, which was announced Sept. 21. He also recently contributed $1 million for the Dick and Sandy Dauch Alumni Center's Hall of Achievement, designed to create a showcase for university achievements. Spurgeon graduated from Purdue in 1961 with a bachelor's degree in industrial management. An entrepreneur who has built companies throughout the United States, he most recently was president and CEO of Lincoln Office in Peoria, Ill. He has served on the executive committee of the Purdue Alumni Association Board of Directors and chairs its Strategic Planning Task Force. The naming of two facilities – the Bindley Bioscience Center and the Dennis J. and Mary Lou Schwartz Tennis Center – also was approved. The $15 million, 50,000-square-foot Bindley Bioscience Center in Discovery Park will be named for alumnus William E. Bindley, an Indianapolis business and civic leader who gave the university a $52.5 million gift – the largest contribution by a single individual in Purdue history. Of that amount, Bindley designated $7.5 million to cover half the construction cost for the bioscience research center. The Bindley Bioscience Center will house flexible laboratories for a spectrum of multidisciplinary research in the life sciences. The center also will enable researchers to work with engineers in the Birck Nanotechnology Center, also being built at Discovery Park. Construction on the center, approved in July by the trustees, is expected to begin in February and be completed in the spring of 2005. Bindley graduated from Purdue with a bachelor's degree in industrial economics in 1962. He received an honorary doctorate of management from Purdue in 1997. He currently is chairman and chief executive officer of Bindley Capital Partners LLC, a private equity firm located in Indianapolis and Naples, Fla. He also is chairman of Priority Healthcare Corp., a national provider of biopharmaceuticals and complex therapies for the treatment of chronic diseases, which he founded in 1994. For the year 2000, the company ranked 39th among all U.S. public companies in total return to stockholders. In 1968 he founded Bindley Western Industries, a pharmaceutical distributor that became a Fortune 200 Company trading on the New York Stock Exchange and was the second largest company in Indiana. Bindley has served Purdue in many capacities over the years and is now a member of The Campaign for Purdue, the university's $1.3 billion fund-raising effort. Bindley and his wife, Mary Ann, live in Naples, Fla., and also maintain a residence in Carmel, Ind. The Dennis J. and Mary Lou Schwartz Tennis Center recognizes a gift from Dennis Schwartz, who pledged $3 million toward building a $6.5 million, 60,000-square-foot indoor facility in honor of his late wife, an avid tennis player who died in February. The center will be located east of the Boilermaker Aquatic Center. An additional six outdoor practice courts will be added, doubling the number of outdoor courts. Schwartz, a retired banking executive from Mishawaka, Ind., graduated from Purdue in 1963 with a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering. A campaign for the remainder of the funds necessary to build the center will begin in 2003. Construction, which will take about one year to complete, is scheduled to begin in 2004. The facility will be open to the community when the tennis teams are not practicing.
Writer: Grant Flora, (765) 494-2073, gflora@purdue.edu Sources: Kenneth Burns, executive vice president and treasurer, (765) 494-9705, kpburns@purdue.edu Wayne Kjonaas, vice president for physical facilities, (765) 494-8000, wkjonaas@purdue.edu Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
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