Building Commission Supports UW Arts Center

By Bill McCarthy

bmccarthy@wyomingnews.com

CHEYENNE - The State Building Commission voted Wednesday to support funding a new building for the fine arts center at the University of Wyoming.

The commission also voted to support renovation of a UW residence hall and building a joint facility with Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne in the more distant future.

The commission, made up of statewide elected officials, gave UW authority to seek up to $33 million in revenue bonds to fund construction of the new facility.

The university will pay with the bonds rather than asking for a direct state appropriation during this lean budget year.

Though the university does not expect to have a firm price until January, it is committed to spending less than $33 million.

The final number will be available before the Legislature produces its biennium budget in a session that begins in February.

The university plans to repay the bonds using federal mineral royalties.

The current facilities for the visual and performing arts "are bursting at the seams" because of the increasing number of students and limited facilities, said Rick Miller, UW vice president for government, community and legal affairs.

The new facility, to be built near the Centennial Complex on the Laramie campus, is the first phase of a larger project. It will house visual arts, such as sculpture, paintings and ceramics.

The second phase will renovate and expand the existing fine arts building, opened in 1972 and expanded in 2000, to house performing arts.

The second phase is predicted to cost about $50 million.

Construction is not planned on that facility until summer 2013 because of the state's declining revenue.

The commission also authorized UW to spend up to $6 million to renovate Downey Residence Hall built in 1965.

That also will be funded with revenue bonds paid for with student housing fees. No increase in student housing fees will be required.

With most students preferring cell phones, the university can use fees assessed to provide land-line telephone service to pay the bonds.

Similar renovations have been done to McIntyre Hall and Orr Hall.

The commission also voted to support a joint UW and LCCC facility for baccalaureate and graduate degree education in Cheyenne.

But Gov. Dave Freudenthal, the Building Commission chairman, said that the approval carries no guarantee of funding for the estimated $26 million project.

Approval is just a way of saying "this where we want to be" in future years, he said.

The project has been discussed for years, and Miller said eventually the facility will be staffed with UW professors like a facility at Casper College has been for decades.

Posted on Thursday, October 22, 2009