A campus map of IUPUI showing realignment plans.
State lawmakers adopted a two-year budget early Friday morning that includes $120 million for new buildings envisioned as part of the uncoupling of IUPUI, a move that is intended to give Indiana University and Purdue University their own identities in Indianapolis.
The spending plan includes $60 million for Indiana University to construct a “school of science instructional and research building” and $60 million for a Purdue to erect an “academic and student success building,” according to language in the budget.
“As we create a world-class urban research university, these funds will enable us to build the instructional and research space needed to launch a contemporary School of Science at [IU Indianapolis],” IU President Pamela Whitten said in written remarks. “This will greatly enhance STEM growth for the university and for Indianapolis.”
The IU building will be part of the four-block science and tech corridor that the university plans to create in Indianapolis to boost the number of STEM graduates.
IU didn’t provide any other details about its new building. Purdue officials didn’t immediately comment.
State funding for the capital projects comes as Indiana grapples with a declining postsecondary attainment rate, which fell from 65% in 2015 to 53% in 2020, the lowest rate in a generation, according to the Indiana Commissioner for Higher Education.
“This is about economic growth,” said Chris Lowery, Indiana’s Commissioner for Higher Education, following passage of the budget early Friday morning. “Those funds are an investment to make sure that the talent pipeline and the research side of those institutions are well-equipped to do that work and answer the call for the economic growth that we’ve already started.”
Gov. Eric Holcomb said the IUPUI realignment remains “critically important” to his administration.
“It was something that had been discussed literally from day one,” Holcomb said.
Sen. Shelli Yoder, D-Bloomington, said she was pleased to see Republican lawmakers allocate funding to the initiative.
“I know at times the value of higher education seems to be questioned,” Yoder said. “This investment is a good thing for the state of Indiana.”
State funding for the IU and Purdue presence in Indianapolis is one of several ways the state budget will impact Indianapolis.
Included in the spending plan is a mechanism for Indianapolis to impose a tax on downtown property owners in the Mile Square to pay for revitalization efforts. That measure remained in the budget despite last-minute lobbying efforts by the Indiana Apartment Association to remove the language, according to two lawmakers familiar with the matter.
Indianapolis will receive an extra $8 million in road funding under a bill authored by Sen. Aaron Freeman, R-Indianapolis. The legislation ensures that three townships that are currently not counted as part of Marion County’s population in the state’s road-funding formula are included. Those townships weren’t taken into account in the city’s share of state road funding due a technical error. Indianapolis will also need to come up with a local match for the $8 million.
But the city’s Democratic leaders did not escape the this year’s legislative session totally unscathed. The Republican-controlled Legislature late Thursday approved an omnibus motor vehicle bill that contained a provision that prevents the Democratic-controlled Indianapolis City-County Council and Mayor Joe Hogsett from moving ahead with their plan to ban right turns on red in a certain portion of downtown.
Freeman won approval to insert the provision, characterizing the city’s proposal as “stupid” local government overreach. Democratic leaders said the move was intended to curb an increasing number of pedestrian deaths in the city.
By Peter Blanchard of IBJ.
