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UM Curators Prepared to Send Five-Year Capital Plan for Approval in April

A Translational Precision Medicine Complex and renovations to the School of Nursing are the proposed top capital priorities for MU from 2019 to 2023.


The Board of Curators Finance Committee reviewed a five-year capital plan on Tuesday that identified major priority projects across all four UM System campuses.

“We’re putting our plans that we believe in as leaders of the University forward to our board and then they have a job to pressure test those plans,” MU Vice President for Finance and Chief Financial Officer Ryan Rapp said.

 
 
The capital plan reviewed on Tuesday will be brought to the full board for approval in April. However, Rapp said, this does not necessarily mean the priority projects will be completed. Approval of the plan just authorizes UM campuses to begin fundraising and planning for the projects.

Tuesday’s special board meeting was just another step in the capital planning process. The first step happened in November when the board approved the priority projects and included them in the preliminary capital plan.

In November, each priority project was ranked and scored on its program plan and community impact, sustainability and funding, and operating cost support. These components were scored on a scale one through 10 to create a Facilities Stewardship Index, or FSI. The projects were then ranked based on this index.

The UM System has $1.7 billion in facilities condition needs according to the preliminary capital plan and over half of the system’s academic buildings fall in the category of below average condition, poor condition, or replacement is recommended based on the Facility Condition Needs Index, or FCNI.

The priority projects for each UM school are:

MU:

  • Translational Precision Medicine Complex
  • School of Nursing — renovation and addition
  • Medical Science Building — upgrade and maintenance of Research Vivarium

University of Missouri — Kansas City:

  • Conservatory of Music & Dance
  • Spencer Chemistry & Biological Sciences Renovation Phase II
  • Health Sciences Interprofessional Education and Research Buildings

Missouri University of Science and Technology:

  • Schrenk Hall Addition and Renovation – Phase III
  • Engineering Research Lab Addition and Renovation
  • Library/Learning Common
  • Havener Center Renovation & Expansion

University of Missouri — St. Louis:

  • Space Consolidation and Infrastructure
  • Social Science Building Renovation
  • Stadler Hall Renovation

The UM System placed the proposed Translational Precision Medicine Complex, or TPMC, at the top of its list of fiscal year 2020 requests for state funding. Each campus can submit one request for state capital appropriations, Cartwright said. The UM System plans to request $50 million in appropriations to fund the complex.

Translational medicine is the combination of research and application: inventing new ways to treat and diagnose illnesses and then using them to help actual patients. Precision medicine is the practice of tailoring medical treatment to the molecule-by-molecule make-up of the patient. At a curators meeting last November, creation of the $200 million complex was deemed a top priority.

In February, Cartwright announced a plan to double MU’s research funding — from $200 million to $400 million in annual expenditures — and decrease the funding gaps between MU and other public schools in the Association of American Universities.

 
On Tuesday Cartwright said the TPMC is part of this plan.

“How do we think about putting in place the infrastructure needed to allow us to be more competitive nationally to attract more federal research funding? That is one of the bigger things we’re looking at in terms of that center. How does that allow us to attract that research funding?” he said.

Cartwright said he expects some of the projects in the plan to come back to the board for approval in April “because there are some of them that are pretty much ready to go,” in terms of funding and sustainability. He said he anticipates the renovations to MU’s School of Nursing and Medical Science Building will be approved for the next phase during April’s meeting.

The next Board of Curators meeting is scheduled for April 12 and 13 at Missouri S&T. Cartwright said if the plan is approved, the board will work on more specific details of the projects such as timelines and funding.