Hope for new chemistry labs for faculty and students has been renewed with the Joint Finance Committee’s approval of the Chemistry Building renovations to the capital budget.
After a lengthy approval process, the Chemistry Building renovations were approved Wednesday, adding it to a list of several University of Wisconsin projects already approved by the State Building Commission.
The committee approved $86,208,000 of GPR-supported bonding and $21,552,000 of gifts, grants and other funds, making up a total budget of $107,760,000 for the renovation project.
William Elvey, UW’s vice chancellor for facilities planning and management, said should the Chemistry Building renovations be approved in the final draft of the budget, the renovations would not begin until about 2019.
He said he estimated costs for the renovations of the first three floors of the Daniels building would be approximately $17 million total.
The Chemistry Building renovation project was not originally on the list of UW projects recommended by Gov. Scott Walker and approved of by the building commission.
Elvey said the Chemistry Building renovations were most likely not approved because Walker’s budget bill for the UW System did not approve of any new state borrowing.
While new state borrowing for the Chemistry Building renovation was not approved, the projects that were approved were done so with the understanding that they would rely on borrowing that has already been approved by prior legislatures, Elvey said.
“Clearly the Chemistry Building’s approval was connected to an issue that deals with the state debt problems,” Elvey said.
But even with the approval of the Chemistry Building renovations to the capital budget, the budget needs the Senate and Assembly’s stamps of approval before Walker has the chance to view it.
While the university is hopeful that the renovations will be approved, there is still a chance that the Legislature could make changes to the budget before it finally reaches Walker, who has the power to veto it, Elvey said.
The Chemistry Building has been a “number one priority project” at UW for the “past biennium and this biennium,” Elvey said. Even though the approval process has a few more steps, Elvey said there is still hope that the renovations will finally be approved.
