A building boom is on at the University of Massachusetts.
At the Worcester campus, excavation has begun on a $400 million science center, one of the largest building projects in New England.
It’s one of several projects in the UMass system’s five campuses and collectively, the projects run counter to what’s occurring in the weak economy.
Over the past year, UMass Lowell has bought a downtown hotel, taken over a city arena and begun construction of a $70 million emerging technologies center.
UMass Boston recently bought the Bayside Exposition Center and will begin construction on two buildings at its Dorchester Bay campus.
At its flagship Amherst campus, UMass has completed more than $300 million in construction projects over the past two years and has $375 million more in construction under way.
The science center is just one of several projects the UMass system is undertaking at its five campuses.
Buoyed by rising enrollment, research grants and an entrepreneurial culture, UMass is expanding, an unusual activity in a sour economy.
It’s also in contrast to delays or cancelations of other projects such as Harvard University’s Allston expansion, Filene’s redevelopment in downtown Boston and Columbus Center in the South End.
As a result UMass is giving relief to the construction industry, which is beginning to recover from the recession.
Growth at the university is making the construction possible. State funding accounts for 14 percent of this year’s $2.8 billion budget, down from 28 percent about a decade ago. Since 2003, enrollment has risen nearly 15 percent, to about 66,000 students as revenue from tuition, fees and other non-state sources doubled to $2.3 billion.
Federal and corporate funding of UMass research has jumped 50 percent to nearly $500 million last year. Fees from licensing technologies developed at UMass nearly quadrupled to more than $70 million.
And university officials said they’ve taken an entrepreneurial approach to make the most of what’s available. In Worcester, for example, state funding accounts for less than one-fourth of the new building’s price tag. The remainder will be financed with bonds issued by the UMass Building Authority and paid off with research money attracted by the school’s scientists and licensing fees for the commercialization of their discoveries.
"Years ago, the attitude was the state would provide," UMass president Jack M. Wilson said. "Now, we’re taking a very businesslike approach and looking for people to come in with an entrepreneurial outlook, not an entitlement culture."
