SBU breaks ground on $2.7M building project

Southwest Baptist University officials broke ground last week on a $2.7 million renovation and expansion project at the Bolivar campus.

The project would make improvements to the Gene Taylor National Free Enterprise Center, home of the university’s Robert W. Plaster College of Business and Computer Science, as well as its department of history and political science, according to a news release.

GHN Architects Engineers is serving as architect and construction manager for the project, which calls for:
    •    a 26,000-square-foot renovation, including to its Woody Auditorium and faculty office space;
    •    an 11,300-square-foot addition that would give the center new classrooms, a student lounge, study rooms, and accounting and computer science labs; and
    •    updated technology and classroom, office and lounge furnishings.

Slated to begin by the end of the year, construction is expected to wrap up in time for the fall semester of 2016, according to the release.

To fund the project, SBU received a seven-figure gift from the Robert W. Plaster Foundation and a $500,000 challenge grant from the J. E. and L. E. Mabee Foundation of Tulsa, Okla.

Plaster, who founded and later sold Empire Gas Corp., is known for contributions to area colleges, according to his foundation’s website.

The J. E. and L. E. Mabee Foundation was formed in 1948 by John E. Mabee and his wife, Lottie E. Mabee. The organization funds Christian organizations.