Work under way on UAH science facility
$60 million building will be 'first-class' and a 'community treasure'
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
The groundbreaking ceremony Monday was on the University of Alabama in Huntsville campus, but university President Frank Franz and the host of dignitaries made it clear the laboratories and classrooms to come in this state-of-the-art, $60 million Applied Sciences Building will benefit Huntsville, the state and the nation.
"This is going to be a first-class engineering and science facility," said U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa. He is a longtime supporter of the project and secured $50 million in federal dollars to make it possible.
Gov. Bob Riley helped bring another $10 million for the building from the state's Capital Improvement Trust Fund.
When the four-story, 200,000-square-foot building opens in the fall of 2007, it will feature 18 teaching labs with seating for 416; 13 classrooms with seating for 650; 15 research labs; two auditoriums, seating 200 and 120; and nearly 150 offices.
"It will be a community treasure, benefiting all of us," Franz said. It is "an extraordinary new resource that will touch many people."
The world-class laboratories and classrooms will help the university attract and retain more top scientists and students, Shelby said. Their work will complement research already under way at Redstone Arsenal, Marshall Space Flight Center, the National Space Science and Technology Center, at private companies and elsewhere in the area.
"I can tell you, Huntsville and Madison County is a unique community," Shelby said. The defense and national security work done here is not duplicated anywhere, and the new UAH building will spur further advancement.
"What's important is not the building," he said. "It's what comes out of it."
"This is huge," said U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Huntsville. "A very significant investment in UAH."
While working and traveling with Shelby over the years, Cramer said, they had often discussed the growth and dynamism of the Huntsville area. He's enjoyed "plotting" with Shelby in Congress to benefit North Alabama, he said.
The ceremony Monday was not just to celebrate the new Applied Sciences center, Cramer said, but "the opportunity to capture in that building a better future for ourselves."
A lot of ground has already been moved for the project. Bulldozers and dump trucks full of red dirt paused for the short ceremony, then went back to work on the building, which is to become the focal point of a new landscaped "gateway" to the campus from Sparkman Drive - part of the recently approved campus master plan.
Riley, who did not attend, said in a statement that research universities like UAH are important to the state's economic success.
"Investing in our research universities is one of the smartest ways for Alabama to secure high-paying, non-exportable jobs," he said. "The combination of research expertise at UAH and the federal agencies at Redstone Arsenal has created a critical mass of scientific and engineering talent surrounding Huntsville that very few, if any, other communities can match."
© 2005 The Huntsville Times
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