Grand Valley State University was awarded $30 million in state supplemental funding in 2023 to help fund a massive renovation of the EV Eberhard Center on its downtown campus, and the creation of a high-tech hub called Blue Dot Lab.
But there are multiple steps in the state’s Capital Outlay process.
Christopher Knape, GVSU’s Assistant Vice President for University Communications, explains.
“Once the state awards the money, they actually need to provide construction authorization for the money that's been allocated. And that's one of the things that we've been waiting on from the state between the time the initial outlay was announced and the passage of this recent budget.”
The university board approved issuing bonds in February, contingent on getting the go-ahead from the state.
“So now that we have that construction authorization, we can go through the formal process of bonding, and then also get those final steps in place so that we can schedule groundbreaking. And we hope to do that before the end of the year.”
The $166 million Blue Dot Lab project redesigns the Eberhard Center as a space for tech education and innovation for all disciplines, including a three-story addition to house the College of Computing, WGVU studios for digital public media production, event space, labs and classrooms.
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