Contract awarded for interior construction of center

Northwest’s Board of Regents met via teleconference today (Thursday, June 5) and approved a staff recommendation to select Brooner & Associates Construction Inc. of St. Joseph as the contractor charged with finishing the interior of the University’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Located on the Northwest campus, the 90,000 square-foot CIE is designed to function as both a high-tech business incubator and an academic teaching and research facility housing the newly formed Graduate Applied Research Center.

Five companies bid on the center contract, with Brooner & Associates submitting the low bid of $11,307,696, an amount well within the University’s budgeted estimate. Construction is scheduled to begin this summer and should be complete in spring 2009.

Funding for the $24.4 million center is being provided through Missouri’s Lewis and Clark Discovery Initiative, a measure designed to fund science and technology facilities at public colleges and universities statewide.

When complete, the CIE, which has a modular design to allow for future expansion, will include laboratories, offices and other facilities for up to five business incubator tenants. The academic module will comprise a half-dozen laboratories, specialized chemistry and biology research facilities, offices for faculty and staff, a “clean room” and a general classroom.

Missouri-based Carbolytic Materials Company, which recovers marketable industrial materials from shredded automotive tires, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the University declaring its intent to become the first center tenant. CMC, which recently announced that it will build a new factory in Maryville, plans to use the center for its research and development operations. Negotiations with a number of other potential center tenants are underway as well.

On the academic side, the CIE will allow Northwest to develop new academic programs in such areas as nanoscience while meeting increased student demand for courses in biology, chemistry and other scientific disciplines.

Dr. Charles McAdams, dean of the Northwest’s College of Arts and Sciences, said growing enrollment has increased pressure on existing facilities, limiting course availability and forcing some campus laboratories to adopt late evening hours.

McAdams said new lab facilities at the center will allow the University to offer additional sections of high-demand courses, such as those in molecular and cellular biology, and accommodate anticipated growth by the Missouri Academy of Science, Mathematics and Computing, Northwest’s two-year residential program for gifted high-school age students.

Completion of the center will also create additional facilities for faculty and graduate students conducting research for center tenants. One of the CIE’s main attractions to the private sector, McAdams said, is the access it provides to academic expertise and new learning in science, information technology, market research and statistics.

McAdams said the center will also give students numerous opportunities for hands-on corporate and research experience as well as possible employment with tenant companies.

For more information, please contact:

Anthony Brown,
News Bureau Manager
E-Mail: abrown@nwmissouri.edu
Phone: 660.562.1704
Fax: 660.562.1900

Northwest Missouri State University
219 Administration Building,
800 University Drive
Maryville, MO 64468

Return to Previous Page