EAST LANSING, Mich. — Michigan State University’s future STEM Teaching and Learning Facility will be the first in Michigan to use an innovative wood product, rather than concrete and/or steel, for its load-bearing structure.

Known as mass timber, this framing style uses large solid or engineered wood. The $100 million facility will be constructed of glue-laminated wooden columns and cross-laminated timber, or CLT, a relatively new product for the floors and ceilings.

“As a leading public research university, MSU has the fantastic opportunity to showcase these innovative and sustainable construction methods in the state of Michigan,” said Satish Udpa, MSU’s acting president. “I am delighted to see university operations, including building construction, pull from our state’s history as a lumber leader and mesh with the engineering capabilities of advanced materials.”

CLT is a wood panel made from gluing layers of solid wood at cross-grain to result in a lightweight and strong panel. It’s been used in Europe for more than 20 years, with recent interest in Canada and the U.S., especially on the West Coast.

“We compared mass timber with other framing methods and were intrigued by how far wood has come as a building material,” said John LeFevre, MSU’s Planning, Design and Construction director. “A major advantage is the speed of construction – the panels can be assembled very quickly.”

The new building will be constructed around the former Shaw Lane Power Plant, adjacent to Spartan Stadium. The renovation will include a student science studio space and a vibrant commons area with a cafe. Two new mass timber wings will offer 117,000 square feet of modern teaching labs, responding to STEM course demand, which has increased 40 percent in the last 10 years at MSU. The project architect is IDS with Ellenzweig Architecture, IDEO Design and Sasaki Design. Granger Construction Company is the construction manager.

The pleasing aesthetics of exposed wood also create a warm, inviting and atypical environment for learning science.

“I am excited to see the educational, research and outreach opportunities that the building itself promises to many academic units and to our land-grant mission,” said Ron Hendrick, dean of MSU’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. “It is an interdisciplinary platform encompassing forestry, construction management, biosystems engineering and beyond, and can serve as a catalyst to develop this new technology in Michigan.”

Many believe the MSU building will catalyze additional mass-timber construction in the state, which might lead to establishing CLT manufacturing in Michigan.

“Michigan is ideally situated to become a leader in mass-timber manufacturing,” said Mark Rudnicki, Michigan Forest Biomaterials Institute executive director. “We have abundant forest resources that are managed sustainably and the manufacturing know-how. But there is not a building CLT manufacturer in the central U.S.”

Michigan DNR officials agree.

“Having a CLT manufacturer in Michigan would not only create green jobs using sustainable resources, but also provide the financial resources and incentives that are needed to restore and conserve healthy, diverse and productive forests that provide so many other benefits,” said Debbie Begalle, state forester and chief of the Forest Resources Division of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

The building is slated to open in fall 2020 with classes beginning in January 2021. The wood panels are being manufactured in Quebec and will arrive on campus in April.

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Memphis, Tenn.-based Education and Realty Trust (EdR) — a collegiate housing management and development firm — has partnered with MSU on the project. The official decision and announcement was made on Feb. 15 when the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning made the decision and public announcement to move forward on the project. The multi-use development will be dubbed, “College View.”

McCarty Architects of Tupelo, Miss., and Hanbury Architects of Norfolk, Va,. have been chosen for the project, with Montgomery Martin Contractors of Memphis, Tenn., serving as the general contractor. The commencement of construction came after an extensive feasibility study was conducted by MSU and EdR.

The budget for the project is $67 million, with plans for EdR to finance, build and manage the College View development using a 40-year lease of university land with a 10-year renewal option. The development will be financed through EdR’s innovative on-campus equity plan, The ONE Plan. The ONE Plan uses the company’s equity and financial stability to fund projects on university land. This program gives the university access to a single trusted partner, and helps create substantial long-term financial benefits for EdR and its partner university. MSU will receive a portion of revenue as ground lease payment.

“We are honored to start this development that will positively impact both Mississippi State and the overall community of Starkville,” said  Randy Churchey, CEO at EdR, in a recent statement. “We have consistently seen that new on-campus housing developed by EdR helps our partner universities to increase enrollment, improve retention and generate a stronger sense of community and engagement with the campus.”

The approximately 34-acre parcel of land is located on the northwestern edge of campus, in the previous location of the Aiken Village apartments prior to their recent demolition. Plans for the project call for the construction of a multi-phased development that will include 656 residential beds for upperclassmen in Phase I, with completion of the project expected in fall 2019.

In addition, College View will feature 46,000 square feet of retail and commercial space, recreational amenities, an outdoor entertainment zone, a 7,000-square-foot day care center and parking. There may be further phases to the project in the future, but they will not be determined until further market analysis has been conducted and the current phase is further underway.

“We believe that our partnership with EdR will help us meet the needs of our students, and College View will also become a destination for members of the community, alumni and other visitors to Starkville and Mississippi State,” said Mark E. Keenum, president of MSU, in a recent statement. “I appreciate the support of the Board of Trustees as we have worked steadily over the past three years to bring this first-of-its kind project to a Mississippi university campus.”

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EAST LANSING, Mich. — Amongst the many green and sustainable efforts made by Michigan State University (MSU) over the years, the school can now also proudly boast having the largest solar carport in the U.S.

Thanks to Vancouver, British Columbia-based Alterra Power and Inovateus Solar LLC in South Bend, Ind., MSU now has a fully operational 11-MW solar array on five of its parking lots as of Dec. 21. The solar panels are located above 45 acres of carports at MSU, covering more than 4,500 parking spaces across campus.

The solar carports are an investment that the school made with the expectation of saving $10 million over 25 years, after spending just under $2.5 million to connect the solar PV arrays to the MSU electrical system —  less than what MSU would have spent on its other forms of power generation, according to MSU’s online carport initiative.  For the rest of the project, the 1st Source Bank in South Bend, Ind., provided a long-term loan of $19.8 million, and will be paid over time by MSU purchasing the energy generated by the PV array.

Alterra will manage the project, which will sell 100 percent of its power under a 25-year agreement with the Board of Trustees of MSU. Inovateus is the construction manager for the project and will provide operation and maintenance services as well.

The project will bring cleaner air to MSU students and faculty because of the emissions-free generation of electricity, according to Wolfgang Bauer, a university distinguished professor in physics who assisted with the project, in an MSU article on the college’s website. It will also help reduce the university’s utility costs over time, which, in turn, will help keep tuition rates as low as possible, Bauer added.

In addition to these benefits, the solar carports will provide protection from direct sunlight and prevent parked cars from heating up too much in the summer as well as keep parked cars protected from snowfall in the winter. The solar panels will also produce power for the campus during daytime hours when demand is typically at its highest and will generate more than 15,000 megawatt hours of power per year — about 5 percent of the electricity used on campus annually. Finally, the solar carports will be a catalyst for additional renewable projects on campus.

The installation of the massive solar array is consistent with the university’s Energy Transition Plan to invest in sustainable energy research, improve the environment on campus and contain overall energy costs.

Construction of the solar arrays on the five campus parking lots began in March 2017, and work was completed over the spring, summer and fall. The arrays became fully functional and operational in December, keeping with the original timeline projected by the university.

“We’re pleased to complete this project within 2017 — with tremendous thanks to our partners at Michigan State University, 1st Source and Inovateus,” said Jon Schintler, vice president of Project Finance & Development at Alterra, in a recent statement. “We’re looking forward to further growth of our U.S. solar business and many successful years delivering clean power to MSU.”

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