The Virginia General Assembly approved more than $210 million for construction projects at George Mason University. The total includes $51 million in general fund dollars. The remainder comes from revenue bonds, tuition and other sources.
“They made out like gangbusters this year. This was their best year,” Del. Vince Callahan, R-McLean, chair of the House of Delegates appropriations committee, said Wednesday.
The funding included $42 million for a biocontainment center at the university’s Prince William campus, $50 million for classrooms and computer-based research labs for the Volgenau School of Information Technology and Engineering, and $56 million for housing, both at the Fairfax campus.
Construction should start on these and other projects within a year, said Tom Calhoun, GMU’s vice president for facilities. The university is breaking ground this summer on projects approved in past sessions, he said.
“This coming year will be the largest year in terms of the university’s history of what we call work in place, dollars in the ground,” said Calhoun, who estimated about $100 million of work will be done this fiscal year.
The university was approved for more than $1 billion in general and non-general funding for operating, capital and research costs over the next two years. Of that, nearly $290 million in operating costs is from the state.
“This budget begins to pay for the growth we have gone through in the last four or five years,” said Alan Merten, GMU president, who said his university has expanded by 7,000 students to 30,000.
The university was given “dramatic support” for research projects for the first time. Merten noted that the state gave funding to match the school’s fund raising on several capital projects, such as the engineering building and the university’s performing arts centers.
