Purdue News
Purdue News
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April 9, 2004 Trustees advance e-enterprise, mechanical engineering buildingsWEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The Purdue University Board of Trustees today (Friday, 4/9) approved the building of the e-Enterprise Center in Discovery Park to house some of the university's largest research projects. The board also moved forward toward an expansion of the West Lafayette campus mechanical engineering facilities and approved the leasing of almost 50,000 square feet of classroom space for the Purdue Calumet campus. The board hired Brenner Design, of Indianapolis, as architect and engineering firm for the $10 million e-Enterprise Center, which will house large-scale interdisciplinary research projects from departments throughout the university. "The e-Enterprise Center is an important piece of Discovery Park, Purdue's future hub of interdisciplinary research," said Kenneth P. Burns, Purdue executive vice president and treasurer. "By providing a place for researchers from around campus to come together on large research projects, the center will help provide the infrastructure for the next generation of technological advances at Purdue." Ned Howell, e-Enterprise Center managing director, said the facility will primarily house some of the university's superprojects, Purdue's largest cross-disciplinary research projects. Faculty and students involved in the research would have office and research space in the new building, and Howell said researchers will benefit from frequent contact with other researchers, both through their own projects and others. "Right now, we have projects spread all over campus," Howell said. "By bringing students and faculty together, it will help increase the effectiveness of their collaboration and the pace of their research. Through frequent interaction with researchers on other projects, faculty and students will likely develop new ideas about their own research by learning about the research of others. We would also expect some interproject collaboration made possible by the close proximity of teams." Howell said that while designs for the building are not complete, he envisions several projects being able to be housed in the facility. By their funding nature, these projects will be temporary, and the teams of researchers could rotate in and out of the space every few years, he said. Besides providing work space and computer infrastructure, Howell said the e-Enterprise Center staff also will support the research teams in several aspects of proposal development and project management. This, he said, will give faculty more time for research, making the projects more efficient. Purdue's e-Enterprise Center will bring together faculty and students with strengths in database systems design and integration engineering, software engineering, communication, management, operations systems, production systems, decision theory applications, system performance, risk evaluation, marketing, customer service and model simulation. Through this center, an entire enterprise – commerce, supply chain, management, operations, product life cycle management, customer service and data security – can be modeled, analyzed and made more efficient. Discovery Park, at the corner of State Street and Intramural Drive, is a central point in the future growth of research at Purdue. Besides the e-Enterprise Center, the park will house the Birck Nanotechnology Center, Bindley Bioscience Center, Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Discovery Learning Center and the Biomedical Engineering Building. The trustees also voted to hire Scholer Corp., of Lafayette, and Moody-Nolan Inc, of Indianapolis, to serve as the architect and engineering firm for a 95,000-square-foot addition to the Mechanical Engineering Building. Burns said the building of the mechanical engineering addition is a an important step in achieving Purdue's strategic plan. "Part of providing a world-class engineering education for our students is to provide them with world-class facilities for learning and research," Burns said. "The student-focused design of the addition will benefit both students and faculty as engineering continues to evolve." The wing will be paid for in part by a $7 million gift from Roger B. Gatewood, a 1968 Purdue mechanical engineering alumnus. Gatewood's gift was announced last fall. The four-story wing, to be built on the southwest side of the current building, is designed to facilitate not only classroom learning for students, but also will include facilities for undergraduate laboratory spaces adjacent to classrooms to more easily incorporate design work into undergraduate classes, said E. Daniel Hirleman, William and Florence Perry Head of Mechanical Engineering. "For more than a century, the Purdue School of Mechanical Engineering has been an international leader in curriculum advances, for example in control theory, experiential or lab-based learning, communications, design, and team-based engineering," Hirleman said. "The new wing will enable the next wave of educational innovations. "In our multiscale manufacturing center, students will become as well-versed in microfabrication and eventually nanofabrication as they are with the traditional large-scale manufacturing processes of today. In the Product Engineering and Realization Lab, students will be immersed in a microcosm of the product life cycle. A centerpiece collaborative classroom will support peer-to-peer and team-enhanced learning." The new wing also will increase available research space. Much of that space will accommodate an emphasis on the College of Engineering's research signature areas, including advanced manufacturing, nanotechnology, perception technologies, and tissue and cellular engineering. Hirleman said those research facilities also will include laboratories with an emphasis on biomechanical engineering and product informatics – the application of information technology to the product life cycle. In addition, the new wing will include faculty and graduate student offices, an undergraduate commons area and various research laboratories. The addition is budgeted at $29 million, and it will be built with a combination of state appropriations and gift funds, Burns said. The board also voted to lease a Merrillville classroom facility for the Calumet campus from the Purdue Research Foundation. Calumet's main campus is in Hammond. Burns said Purdue Calumet currently offers courses to more than 600 students at four off-campus sites located in southern Lake County. Three of those locations are available only for night classes, and all of them are filled nearly to capacity. "There is an increasing demand for access to courses taught off campus, but larger enrollments can't be served at the current locations," Burns said. "To respond to this demand, and to achieve Purdue Calumet's strategic enrollment goal of 10,500 students by 2007, additional space is needed, and that new space must be able to accommodate a wider range of introductory courses for our students." The 48,000-square-foot Purdue Research Foundation facility will be located near the Purdue Technology Center at the intersection of Broadway and 101st Street in Merrillville. The estimated cost of the project is $8 million, and Burns said the university will lease the building for the estimated 25 years of the foundation's debt service for its construction. Burns said student fees for the classes will pay for the $565,000 yearly lease. Undergraduate classes taught at the new facility will be restricted to lower-level courses, Burns said. In other news, the board also: • Voted to pay $1.8 million to Daktronics Inc., of Brookings, S.D., for a new Mackey Arena scoreboard. The scoreboard will incorporate a sound system and video displays in a way similar to the Jumbotron at Ross-Ade Stadium. Daktronics has provided scoring systems for Purdue's swimming, baseball, softball and soccer facilities. Within Mackey Arena, the company's systems are already used for floor-level scoreboards, two three-sided shot clocks and numerous locker room clocks tied to the central scoring system. The scoreboard is being paid for with intercollegiate athletic funds. • Authorized the sale of Purdue's storage complex on North Ninth Street in Lafayette, Ind. The university has used the facility for long-term storage of infrequently used equipment, temporary and seasonal equipment, contractors' materials and supplies, and other materials. The site also has been used for the sale of surplus university equipment and other items, including furniture and computers. Burns said the storage buildings on the site are in poor condition and in need of costly repairs. The authorization calls for the sale to be at least for the appraised value of the more than 14 acres. • Hired Tonn and Blank, of Michigan City, Ind., to construct an 874-space parking garage at the Calumet campus. The $11.5 million facility, to be located near the intersection of 171st and Wicker streets, will be paid for through a bond issue. Construction is scheduled to begin next summer. Burns said that due to campus geographic restrictions, the construction of parking garages are necessary for Calumet's continued growth. • Approved the sale of $28 million in bonds for a parking garage and student housing facility to be built at the Calumet campus and $14 million in bonds for the Biomedical Engineering Building on the West Lafayette campus. The term of the Calumet bonds will be approximately 30 years, and the bonds will be issued later this month. Bonds for the Biomedical Engineering Building will be issued when a construction contract is awarded, which is tentatively scheduled for the June trustees' meeting. Those bonds will have a term of approximately 20 years. The board previously approved all three projects. • Hired Burns & McDonnell, St. Louis, as the architect and engineer for a new emissions control system at the Wade Utility Plant. The project, which is budgeted for $9 million, will bring the power plant's boilers into compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency's National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants rule for industrial, commercial and institutional boilers and process heaters. The new standards were released in late February. • Approved hiring Spectrum Engineering, of Auburn, Ind., as the architect and engineering firm for a project to install a new infrastructure and other new equipment at the Northwest Main Substation. The project, with a $1 million budget, will support increased electrical service for recent and future campus construction. It also will include provisions for remote monitoring and control of the new equipment. Writer: Matt Holsapple, (765) 494-2073, mholsapple@purdue.edu Sources: Kenneth P. Burns, (765) 494-9705, kpburns@purdue.edu Edward A. Howell, (765) 494-4891, ned@purdue.edu E. Daniel Hirleman, (765) 494-5688, hirleman@purdue.edu Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
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