Members of UALR’s Board of Visitors voted unanimously Monday to recommend to the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees a $31.6 million bond initiative for capital improvements on the UALR campus.

In a special 5 p.m. meeting at the Jack Stephens Center, UALR Chancellor Joel E. Anderson recommended that the board establish a nursing and health building, a one-stop shop student services building, a new intramural athletic complex, and an $8 million Arkansas Nanotechnology Center.

Four resolutions approved by the board will be presented to the UA Board of Trustees at its meeting on Sept. 4 held on the UALR campus.

Last month, UALR Chancellor Joel E. Anderson and several other University administrators discussed fast-tracking capital projects in UALR’s strategic plan to take advantage UALR’s positive bonding capacity and current favorable interest rates. Dr. Anderson and UALR administrators and deans presented 15 possible projects that would best benefit students and the community. The board asked Dr. Anderson to make his recommendations for UALR’s most critical needs.

“Today’s endorsement by the board gives UALR and Central Arkansas an unprecedented opportunity to speed up the capital project clock for the campus,” Anderson said following Monday’s meeting. “You can rest assured that the university will leave no stone unturned in seeking other stimulus funding and federal grants to help with these projects that are important to the central Arkansas economy.”

Anderson recommended four projects:

• Adding two more floors to the Donaghey Student Center (DSC) to allow the university to consolidate all student services in one place; $9 million.
• Moving administration offices to the DSC and converting Administration South Building to a Heath and Wellness Building to house nursing and other health programs; $2.5 million.
• Creating a Health, Recreation, and Sport Complex for campus and community use; $4 million.
• Building a new Nanotechnology Science Center that would connect to the current engineering and science buildings, $8 million.

Last month, the board voted to build a new honors residential complex on campus to house 500 additional students and to raise the student facility fee to match the fee charged by UA-Fayetteville. Revenues from that fee increase would be dedicated to building and facility needs.

“We’re going to do something historical that I think will move the school to a different level,” UALR Board Chair Dean Kumpuris said at the July meeting.

The board also recommended that UALR move quickly with a bond issue to capitalize on the University’s positive bond capacity and current favorable interest rates.

“We’re going to do something historical that I think will move the school to a different level,” UALR Board Chair Dean Kumpuris at the earlier meeting in July. .

The University will fund the growth initiative through a bond issue of about $28 to $30 million. The meeting topic resulted from board discussion in May about UALR’s positive bonding capacity and current favorable interest rates.