Purdue trustees OK student housing lease and electron microscope purchase

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue trustees on Friday (April 12) approved several lease and purchase transactions for the West Lafayette campus, including:

• The lease of 86 apartments in the forthcoming Aspire at Discovery Park property for the 2019-20 academic year from the Purdue Research Foundation. The units will provide 336 beds for student housing and four beds for residential assistants to help address the increase in student enrollment on the West Lafayette campus.
• The purchase of the approximately 257,000-gross-square-foot facility at 2550 Northwestern Ave., last used as the regional headquarters and operations center for State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. The purchase includes the building and 22 acres of land.
• The lease of one acre of land near the Wade Utility Plant to Duke Energy for 35 years to build, own and operate a new 16 MW natural gas-fired combined heat and power (CHP) plant. The plant will produce both steam, which the university will purchase, and electricity, which will go to the grid for Duke Energy customers.
• The purchase and installation of a Thermo Scientific Krios G3i Cryo Transmission Electron Microscope. The purchase, installation and ongoing maintenance of the microscope will be funded by a consortium led by Purdue that includes the Indiana University School of Medicine, Indiana University Bloomington, the Indiana Bioscience Research Institute, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Eli Lilly and Co. The microscope will be housed on Purdue’s campus in the CryoEM facility at the Wayne T. and Mary T. Hockmeyer Hall of Structural Biology.
• The purchase of 13 single-engine Piper Archer aircraft to refresh the School of Aviation and Transportation Technology’s aviation trainer fleet. The school will sell its current fleet of Cirrus airplanes to help offset the cost of the new fleet. 

Sources: Michael B. Cline, 765-494-8000, mbcline@purdue.edu

Chris Ruhl, 765-494-5166, ruhlc@purdue.edu

James Almond, 765-494-9706, jsalmond@purdue.edu