CSU rolls out $150M expansion plan

FORT COLLINS – Colorado State University has launched a fund-raising drive for one of its more ambitious construction projects in recent memory.

CSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences recently divulged plans for a $150 million, 350,000-square-foot expansion at its 57-acre South Campus – a site that surrounds the existing Veterinary Teaching Hospital at 300 W. Drake Road in Fort Collins.

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The college’s immediate goal is to raise $12 million to fund an agricultural animal complex, to be located east of the Veterinary Teaching Hospital.

“We’re still in the silent phase,´ said Paul Maffey, director of development for the college.

That means that CSU officials are making personal contact with potential private donors. Maffey said the school has secured pledges for significant donations, but he can’t identify the donor “until it’s in the bank.”

The agricultural animal complex represents the first step in a five-year, phase one program that also includes a $12 million equine medical complex and a $45 million expansion and remodeling of the Veterinary Teaching Hospital.

Hospital additions would include a new diagnostic medicine center, new facilities for second-year veterinary students, and a building to house community practice and dentistry programs.

The entire expansion proposal, which has been endorsed by the Colorado Commission of Higher Education, is designed to be phased in over 20 years.

Longer-term projects listed in the 20-year master plan include three animal-research facilities, horse stalls, future expansion of the diagnostic medicine center and a maintenance facility.

In a donor information packet provided by Lance Perryman, dean of the college, the existing Veterinary Teaching Hospital is “overcrowded, outdated, and inadequate for academic needs.”

Nevertheless the hospital, built in 1979, has established a national reputation. CSU ranks No. 2 in the country, next to Cornell University, among the best veterinary-medicine programs in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report.

The ranking reflects highly regarded research programs for maladies such as chronic wasting disease and West Nile virus, programs that help to attract $30 million in annual funding from the National Institutes of Health.

Still, the needs of the hospital – which cover medical service, teaching and research – are manifold, according to the CSU report.

For instance, the number of animals tested each year at the hospital’s diagnostic medicine center has nearly tripled since 1993. A study compiled by the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory showed that the CSU diagnostic center handled “the highest ratio of cases per assignable square foot” among 15 peer laboratories in the region. And numerous agencies affiliated with the diagnostic medicine center are forced to locate elsewhere due to lack of space.

Similarly, the agricultural animal and equine medical facilities find themselves short on space to meet increasing demands, the report shows.

Perryman said he hopes to draw funding for the project from three sources, including private donors, federal grants and bonding to pay for campus infrastructure.

But private money will be the key, and the college has shown the ability to raise it.

Two years ago, the veterinary hospital opened a $10 million, 35,000-square-foot oncology wing built with private donations.

“From a development point of view … that new wing is state of the art, and we want to bring the rest of the hospital to that level,” Maffey said.

The Colorado State University Research Foundation is watching the South Campus expansion project with particular interest. The Research Foundation owns approximately 100 acres on the north and west sides of the South Campus, including the land that’s home to the federal government’s Natural Resources Research Center.

Expansion at the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Research could generate more interest from research-related businesses and agencies to locate on the research foundation’s land.

“We would like to get companies that have a relationship or could have a relationship with the university’s research activity located on CSURF property,´ said Kathleen Henry, executive director of the research foundation.