Lawmakers voted Saturday to chip in more state cash for two of Oregon's signature higher education projects.
The Legislature approved $20 million in state debt for the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact at the University of Oregon, and $39 million to build a second academic building at Oregon State University's Cascades campus in Bend.
The bonds now go to Gov. Kate Brown's desk for final approval, but Brown has already shown her support.
The projects, along with a $9 million new sports facility at Eastern Oregon University, will include varying amounts of cross-laminated timber products made in Oregon in prominent "public-facing" parts of the buildings, per an agreement with Brown reached in December. The timber products industry has also been bolstered by public dollars in the city of Portland.
The vote comes one day after UO broke ground on the first phase of its new science campus in Eugene, which is supported by a $500 million gift from the Nike co-founder spaced out over a decade. The $225 million first phase of the campus, a 160,000-square-foot structure, is expected to be finished by early 2020.
Lawmakers already approved $50 million for the Knight campus in 2017, but the school requested another $40 million during the short session this year.
"With $70 million in state capital funding, we are ahead of where we expected to be at this time," Patrick Phillips, the acting executive director of the Knight Campus said in a statement. "We are very grateful for the state's support of this once-in-a-generation initiative."
Tobin Klinger, UO's spokesman, said the school would "think through the options" before asking for more state resources to support the Knight campus. From the outset in October 2016, UO sought $100 million from the state. But it lowered its request before the 2018 session. "Right now, we're just thrilled that the Legislature kept the momentum going," Klinger said.
Oregon State can now move forward with the next academic building on its four-year branch campus in Bend. The school had asked for $69 million during the 2017 session to aggressively move forward with its expansion plans, including cleaning up a 46-acre pumice mine adjacent to its three building campus. But lawmakers approved just $9 million last summer.
Ed Ray, OSU's president, has argued the legislature should treat the Bend campus as a standalone university. "There aren't too many four-year campuses that have three buildings," Ray said last summer after the Legislature ended.
Lawmakers indicated they would like to see more thought go into how the Higher Education Coordinating Commission evaluates and ranks construction projects in the future.
In a Friday committee hearing, House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, said she expected an interesting discussion. "We need to be comparing campuses, and not just funding every project every campus wants," she said.
Lawmakers also separately approved $3 million for Oregon State to boost the school's renewable wave energy center. That project is backed by $40 million in federal grants. Lawmakers already approved $800,000 for the OSU project in 2016.
