Oct. 3—Washington State University’s Spokane campus is soon to grow, and bear the name of the institution’s former leader, following a meeting of the university’s governing board earlier this month.
On Sept. 19, the WSU board of regents approved the purchase of the Ignite faculty building on the campus’ south end, which the university has leased since 2014 to house the WSU Applied Sciences Laboratory, and by extension, the Shock Physics Institute.
WSU’s tenancy began when the Legislature dissolved the statewide economic development agency Innovate Washington, formerly the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute. Lawmakers granted the master lease for the agency’s headquarters to WSU, and the university has overseen the facility ever since, said Matt Skinner, vice president of finance and business services for the university .
“WSU has been the property manager, charging rent per tenants in the building, remitting those funds to the building owner and just managing that facility,” Skinner said.
Word began to spread last year that the building would soon be put on the market, which led university officials to evaluate their options, including whether to relocate the Applied Sciences Library and other research facilities within already -owned buildings, explore other potential locales to rent or purchase the Ignite facility.
Skinner said his office spent a lot of time weighing whether renting another building or purchasing the Ignite facility would make more financial sense.
WSU’s calculations determined time and time again “that if we stayed in the building for about nine years, we’d be better off to buy on a net present value perspective than we would be to lease,” Skinner said.
The purchase price of $8.25 million includes a $750,000 discount for upcoming maintenance needs the university has identified while managing the property. The regents allocated $9.25 million toward the purchase, with $1 million set aside for those upcoming repairs. The purchase will be covered in large part by $7.3 in bond refinancing savings from last year.
The remaining balance will be covered by nearly $750,000 from the university’s real estate account and another $1.2 million also made available through refinancing. Those sources would need to be made whole eventually, which the university plans to do through installments over the next 6 years, growing at an interest rate of 3%.
“I want to be very, very clear, because this campus in particular is going through a budget restructuring right now, we are not using operating dollars to purchase this building,” said Leslie Brunelli, executive vice president for finance and administration and chief financial officer.
In addition to spurring university staffers to finalize the purchase, the board moved unanimously to name the Spokane campus’ central hub, the Spokane Academic Center, in honor of former WSU President Kirk Schulz.
The Kirk H. Schulz Academic Center, as it’s now called, was established in 2006 to serve as a library and administrative offices for the university’s health campus, according to a university release. It’s since grown to be a gathering point for the entire university community, now housing an academic support and tutoring center, a cafe and student leadership offices.
Schulz semiretired earlier this year following a nearly decadelong stint in the university system’s top role. He is currently serving a yearlong sabbatical and as an adviser to WSU President Betsy Cantwell. His employment with the university will officially end next summer.
Regent Lisa Keohokalole Schauer nominated Schulz for the honor, which was recommended by the university’s facilities names committee and approved by Cantwell before it came before the board.
Schulz played an instrumental role in establishing and guiding the initial years of the WSU Health Sciences campus in Spokane, and “efforts to strengthen a statewide presence” in honor of the institution’s land-grant mission made the campus a logical location to honor Schulz, Schauer said.
Schauer said there was “a tremendous amount of leaders” who supported the nomination in letters to the board, including nine past, present and future Faculty Senate chairs, five former student regents, and two former regents.
“Legacies are not necessarily built for a building but they are built because the work that we do is important and meaningful and impactful to others,” Schauer said. “I think you’ll see in all of these letters of support, the legacy that President Schulz has.”
Editor’s note: The Spokane Academic Center was renamed the Kirk H. Schulz Academic Center by the WSU Board of Regents last month. A photo caption attached to this article originally included incorrect information about which building was renamed.