New Student Event Center, Academic Classroom Building Resubmittal On TTU Capital Plan List

A new student event center for the coming fiscal year and a resubmittal for an academic classroom building on the list of capital plans for Tennessee Tech.

The items were discussed during Thursday’s Board of Trustees meeting. Vice President for Planning and Finance Claire Stinson said they have budgeted some $41 million for the new student event center, which will be located at the south side of Tucker Stadium.

“It would have a lot of dedicated banquet hall space and some break-out rooms for students, it’s primarily for student use,” Stinson said. “And also a satellite food court. And especially the bookstore would sell Tech-themed items.”

Chair Judy Harper asked if this would meet the desire for more student-centric spaces on campus. Student Trustee Savannah Griffin said students are eager to see how the space comes together.

“We won’t know how best it will be used until we’re there,” Harper said. “But we know that hearing Dr. Stinson talking about the breakout rooms students will be able to have to adhere to large student organizations and small student organizations and the meetings they have.”

Stinson said because the academic classroom building was not funded this year, they are proposing to resubmit the project once again. She said they received feedback from the state Higher Education Commission about where they can improve their application.

“Because this gets scored against anything submitted by other campuses,” Stinson said. “So we’ve taken that opportunity to address anything that we might’ve lost points on last year. Once again we’re asking for $69 million in state capital appropriations is what we would expect, and then it does have a match requirement of $6 million.”

The board is applying for the capital outlay request for the 2024-2025 fiscal year.