Beebe moves $500,000 to ASU affiliate center
Posted on Thursday, November 20, 2008
MOUNTAIN HOME — Gov. Mike Beebe released $ 500, 000 in state funds to Arkansas State University at Mountain Home for the construction of an educational and cultural center on the north-central Arkansas campus, school officials said Wednesday.
Construction began last spring on the Vada Sheid Community Development Center, a 60, 000-square-foot facility that will house a 1, 600-seat auditorium, convention and banquet space, a library, classrooms, a gallery, an amphitheater, and the school’s continuing education and workforce training programs.
Beebe authorized the release of money from the state General Improvement Fund.
“We are doing cartwheels,” Ed Coulter, the campus chancellor said in a release. He called the governor “a true friend of higher education.”
The school broke ground on the Sheid Center last April as time ran out to use $ 2 million in federal funds allocated for the project.
Officials said they planned to erect the building’s shell by August 2009 and complete the interior as funds become available.
Lyndle McCurley, ASUMountain Home’s vice chancellor for administrative affairs, said the school has raised about $ 11 million for the project, including the governor’s allocation.
With rising building costs, the entire project will cost between $ 18 million and $ 20 million, McCurley said.
The school also is pursuing grants and private donations, said Carol Grisham, vice chancellor for development.
In addition to serving the school’s 1, 500 students, the Sheid Center will be a “major asset for our north-central Arkansas region because it will be used for all types of events, including regional and statewide conventions and trade shows,” Grisham said.
Sheid was a long-time Democratic state legislator from Mountain Home and the first woman to be elected to both the Arkansas House and Senate. A strong advocate for the two-year college, Sheid died in February at 91.
The Sheid Center will be the largest of the six main buildings on the 135-acre campus in south Mountain Home.
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