University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee officials celebrated the start of construction Wednesday for the university’s new $118 million chemistry building.
The four-story, 163,400-square-foot building is being built just west of the Lubar Entrepreneurship Center at North Maryland Avenue and East Kenwood Boulevard.
When completed, the building will replace UWM’s 50-year-old chemistry building, located at 3210 N. Cramer St. on the west side of campus.
The existing eight-story building was constructed in 1972, and the majority of the building infrastructure systems are original to the facility, according to a state building commission report.
Construction of the new building is scheduled to be completed in late 2023 or early 2024.
The building will “serve as a gateway to the STEM buildings and departments that house those subjects,” UWM said. It will include space for the nearly 2,500 UWM students who take chemistry and biochemistry classes annually.
UWM received $129.5 million in state-supported borrowing for the project as part of the UW System’s $1 billion 2019-‘21 capital budget plan. The state building commission released funding in late 2020 totaling $170 million for both UWM’s chemistry building project and its student union renovation.
The student union project involves renovating about 120,000 square feet of the 350,000-square-foot building at 2200 E. Kenwood Blvd. Work is expected to be completed on that project by early 2023, according to UWM’s website.
