Please note the building rendering is not yet finalized and is a proposed design.
On Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, the Michigan State University Board of Trustees voted to authorize construction of a new Plant and Environmental Sciences Building. This 200,000-square foot facility, located at the corner of Farm Lane and Wilson Road, will provide critical laboratory space for approximately 40 principal investigators and their teams, advancing MSU’s leadership in food security and climate adaptation.
“State-of-the-art spaces will accelerate climate-critical discoveries while helping MSU attract talented graduate students and retain leading researchers,” said Thomas D. Jeitschko, MSU interim provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “This investment in research excellence advances MSU’s 2030 Strategic Plan and will help position MSU for its next 150 years of leadership in agriculture and plant sciences.”
MSU is ranked among the world’s leading universities in plant sciences. Ten of MSU’s 11 members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences focus on plant and environmental sciences, further establishing the university’s strength in these areas.
“We are grateful that the Board of Trustees has approved this high-priority investment in MSU’s current — and future — excellence in plant and environmental sciences,” said Douglas Gage, MSU’s vice president for Research and Innovation. “These disciplines are increasingly important in the face of challenges induced by climate change, and this addition to MSU’s research infrastructure will allow the university to build on its success.”
Planned building features include:
- a rooftop phytotron that regulates temperature, humidity, light and carbon dioxide levels, simulating precise climate conditions;
- the Center for Advanced Microscopy, which supports high resolution plant visualizations and analysis;
- seed storage facilities to safeguard long-term plant biodiversity; and
- collaborative, flexible workspaces that facilitate teamwork across disciplines.
The Plant and Environmental Sciences Building, or PESB, will complement MSU’s plant and environmental science infrastructure, which currently includes the Plant Science Greenhouse complex, the Integrative Plant Sciences Building, the Plant Biology Laboratories, the Biochemistry Building, the Molecular Plant Sciences Building and the Plant and Soil Sciences Building. The facility will promote cross-disciplinary collaborations by housing faculty members who are currently spread across multiple buildings on campus.
“The Plant and Environmental Sciences Building marks a significant milestone for MSU,” said Eric Hegg, dean of the College of Natural Science. “The state-of-the-art resources provided by this building will foster critical interdisciplinary collaborations between the College of Natural Science and the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. These new partnerships will position us to make groundbreaking advances with a far-reaching impact on research, education and the broader scientific community.”
Research teams from both the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory and the Plant Resilience Institute will use the new building, aligning PRL’s strengths in plant biology and molecular genetics with PRI’s focus on developing crop varieties that can withstand heightened environmental stress.
“MSU’s plant sciences research is essential to agricultural producers as they work to feed a global population under increasingly unpredictable growing conditions,” said George Smith, director of MSU AgBioResearch, which supports the work of around 300 researchers in the areas of food, health and the environment. “This new research space will give us unmatched momentum in these efforts and position generations of Spartan scientists to produce high-impact research.”
The newly approved PES Building will break ground in fall 2024, with a project budget of $200 million and a projected completion date of December 2026.
