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ISU, UI campuses to see $260 million in building projects [1]

['Eleanor Hildebrandt', 'More From Author', '- June']

Date: 2023-06-23

Students at Iowa State University and the University of Iowa will soon see changes to their campuses in the form of nearly $260 million worth of capital improvement projects.

The Iowa Board of Regents approved the projects June 14.

UI develops new building, replaces aspects of 70-year-old building

The UI is building a new Health Sciences Academic Building which will cost $249 million. The structure will take the place of parking lot 14 on Melrose Avenue on the west side of campus. It will be a 263,000-square-foot facility.

UI Senior Vice President for Finance and Operations Rod Lehnertz said the new facility will host three nationally noted programs, as the communication sciences and disorders, health and human physiology, and physical therapy and rehabilitation sciences will call the building home. He said it will be “quite a change” to that portion of campus.

“There are several levels of coordinated strategy in bringing these together, but one of the key strategies is that they are the three nationally noted programs currently underserved in their existing spaces now coming together in one building as an enabling project for the hospital (tower) project that will benefit all three programs, we think, vastly,” he said. “And allow for both their success in teaching and research and clinical work and also growth, expected growth in those programs.”

Lehnertz said the project will begin over the summer with several phases, something he called a complicating factor. Phasing is necessary, he explained, because the operations of the Wendell Johnson Speech and Hearing need to be moved to the new site as early as possible to make space for the building of a new hospital tower.

“We will then finish the second phase of the project for health and human physiology and for physical therapy in the next six to nine months after the completion of CSD space,” Lehnertz said.

UI Hospital building usage funds, university treasury temporary investment income, and facility core bond proceeds will pay for the building alongside philanthropic support, Lehnertz said.

The UI will also replace the roof and air handling units to maintain the Ray B. Mossman Business Services Building on Old Highway 218 South. The building is 70 years old and nearly 80,000 square feet.

The building has aging systems but continues to serve several university functions including campus mail and printing, Lehnertz said. The project will cost $3.25 million and it’s funded by building services renewal and improvement funds. It will take nine months and begin this fall.

The structure will remain functional throughout the improvements.

ISU remodels Memorial Union, requests extra funds for projects

The ISU Memorial Union’s second and third floors are being remodeled to provide an updated student experience in the building. The projects were previously approved separately by the regents.

The university requested to combine the two remodels into one budget, without raising any costs.

“The reason why we’re doing this is because it helps us in blending both of these projects into one single project,” ISU Senior Vice President for Operations and Finance Shawn Norman said. “The benefits would be the economy of scale by utilizing a single contractor and consolidating schedules.”

The second floor will enlarge student spaces and dining services. The third floor will provide new offices, conference rooms and collaborative spaces for student success programs.

Norman said the project will continue as planned over the summer and be completed by fall 2024.

ISU received additional funding for replacement of air handling and ventilator units in Kildee Hall. The budget would increase from $1.2 million to $2.3 after bids for the project were placed and came in significantly higher than the original estimations, Norman said.

“We felt that this is due to the construction costs and inflation,” he said.

ISU will need to rebid the project, Norman said, after it declined the previous bids. The heating and cooling units were made in the 1950s and the project will increase the efficiency of the building.

The project will start this summer and finish in fall 2025.

UI looks to remain competitive with new UI Research Park Corporation relationship

The UI transferred 185 acres of land in Coralville, Iowa, that was a blended research park at the university’s Oakdale campus from the regents to the UI Research Park Corporation (UIRP).

UI Business Manager and Director of University Real Estate, Planning & Development David Kieft said the current long-term master ground lease between the two has been around since the 1980.

With the current structure, UIRP can only sub ground lease land to private or third-party developers who want to use the land rather than allowing those parties to outright own the property, which he said has become a challenge.

“It’s hard enough to get them interested in a ground lease but when it’s a sub ground lease with the state of Iowa as the underlying property owner, it just becomes very cumbersome and challenging,” Kieft said. “It’s difficult for finance companies to put any sort of mortgage or lien against the property.”

He said having the property under the name of the corporation will give more flexibility to make it a more successful bioscience research campus.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kieft said a national search by a large vaccine development company looked at the research park’s Iowa City land to build a research property — a development the UI wanted.

“We put together a very robust package with the Iowa City Area Development Group,” he said. “We ended up getting shortlisted and getting to be a finalist, but it ended up going to Manhattan, Kansas. And part of the feedback we received was (about the) delivery model. They wanted to own the ground that they were going to build an $85 million facility on.”

The university predicts there will be more development in the area as the UI continues to build its North Liberty hospital location, which is near the park, Kieft said.

If the research park sold the property, he said the funding would go to what the university and the park needs or it would be reinvested into the upkeep of the park.

The land transfer will allow for UIRP to have more agency to do what is best with the land for the campus moving forward, Kieft said, while also aligning with how the ISU research park operates.

“This will give us, the research park, the ability to continue to ground lease if that’s what works best or sell property if that is what works best and by changing this underlying ownership, it gives us that flexibility,” he said. “The research park corporation is fully controlled by the university … It’s not as if there’s a lack of control over how this land would be leased or sold into the future.”

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