The first phase of the planned Texas A&M-Fort Worth urban research campus will be even bigger than originally envisioned, thanks to some additional funding approved by the university’s governing board.
Texas A&M’s Board of Regents announced Thursday in a press release that it had nearly doubled its construction budget for Phase One of the project, increasing it from $85 million to $150 million.
Money for the construction will come from the “Permanent University Fund and other System monies,” the press release stated.
The first $15 million of the budget will be spent on “design and pre-construction services.”
The Board’s decision to “go bigger and taller” with Phase One was in response to “greater-than-expected demand for space in the Law & Education Building,” the news statement read.
A&M Fort Worth’s School of Law, which has doubled its class enrollment since 2019, is expected to occupy approximately half of the 225,000-square-foot, nine-story building. The remaining space will house programs in engineering, business, health science, and more.
The other two buildings of the planned three-building campus in southeast downtown Fort Worth will be built as a joint public-private sector project using city-issued bonds secured by lease payments from the Texas A&M System, according to the news release.
The Board anticipates it may be asked to give final authorization for a groundbreaking as early as May.
“The vision is to create a hub of collaboration between key Fort Worth industries and top research, education, and workforce training assets of the Texas A&M System,” the release said.
Other changes that the Board of Regents approved on Thursday, as listed in the news release, include:
- $110 million to construct a new dock and infrastructure for an ocean-going training and research ship for the Texas A&M Maritime Academy in Galveston.
- A new bachelor’s degree program in journalism at Texas A&M.
- Increasing the cost of the Engineering Classroom and Research Building at Texas A&M University at Galveston by $6 million.
- Early procurement of machinery and materials for Tarleton State University’s $110 million convocation center.
- A new $15.1 million Nuclear Engineering Education Building that consolidates research assets for Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station in College Station.
- $6.4 million to construct a Propulsion Test Facility at Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station’s Turbomachinery Lab Project in College Station.
