Concordia University Wisconsin is scaling back plans for a new business school building on its Mequon campus to bring costs down and allow the project to move forward.
The university received approvals from the city in 2016 for an 85,000-square-foot; four-story building that was to become the Robert W. Plaster Free Enterprise Center. Concordia had sought $5 million in state money to support the $24.6 million project, but Gov. Scott Walker did not include it in his state budget.
New plans submitted to the city of Mequon call for a 40,716-square-foot; three-story building. Like the previous proposal, the building will include new classrooms, lecture halls and offices for business, education, hospitality, event management and heath profession faculty. University officials said they were able to reconfigure and refine plans so the same student services planned for the larger building could be accommodated in the smaller footprint.
Despite having one less floor, the building still has an overall height of 52 feet, according to plan commission documents. The new plans do remove additional parking that was included in the 2016 proposal but there is space dedicated to future parking lot expansion.
The smaller size is somewhat of a return to the original plans for the new building. Concordia announced plans in 2013 for a $12 million to $15 million, 50,000-square-foot building for the business school. At the time, those plans were described as preliminary and subject to change.
