Iowa State’s proposed student innovation center was the only of three state university projects the Board of Regents property and facilities committee recommended Sept. 9 for funding approval next year.

Regent Milt Dakovich suggested state funding for the University of Iowa’s and University of Northern Iowa’s capital projects be put on “pause” until the Transparent, Inclusive Efficiency Review is done.

“Very serious consideration needs to be given to space utilization and how that space utilization needs to get integrated with what your education delivery model is,” Dakovich said. “If you’re just going to upgrade what you have because it’s broken and old, there’s a very small chance that that’s going to be the right answer down the road.”

The committee voted Sept. 9 to keep the remainder of the proposed five year state-funded capital plan budget and Iowa State’s funding on track for fiscal year 2016. The recommendation to the board was to push the other two regent universities’ funding back one year to fiscal year 2017.

Iowa presented the Seashore Hall area renovation for the department of psychology for a total project cost of $67.5 million. Northern Iowa sought to remodel two existing buildings on campus. Requested funding is $40 million.

The recommended budget for next fiscal year will be reduced from $71 million to about $58 million.

Regent Larry McKibben said he agreed with the idea to pause the projects and said that Iowa State’s innovation center is the most in line with the efficiency review’s goals.

“We’re going to call time out on a lot of things in buildings simply because a major component of the transformation efficiency study is in fact utilization of facilities,” McKibben said.

The proposed $80 million student innovation center would be a hands-on and co-curricular activity building for the colleges of engineering and design. Students studying other disciplines would also be able to use the 175,000-square-foot facility.

“It’s an exciting inter-disciplinary project that really goes to the heart of Iowa State’s brand as a hands-on practical institution,” said Jonathan Wickert, ISU provost. “It’s a very student-focused facility. It’s centered around making, building [and] designing things by students.”

Building a new facility would replace maintenance on two older engineering buildings on campus: Sweeney Hall and the nuclear engineering lab. The center would provide more working space for the increased number of students enrolling in the science, technology, engineering and math fields, Wickert said.

“Physical space for these programs has not kept up with the 35 percent or so enrollment growth that we’ve seen in these disciplines,” Wickert said. “This facility is a key aspect to maintaining our position and building our brand in a field that is really core to the university.”

The full board will vote on the budget at Sept. 10’s meeting in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union.

Deloitte Consulting will present on the Transparent, Inclusive, Efficiency Review study business cases at 1 p.m. in the Sun Room.