Growing Northern Arizona University Reveals Ambitious Campus Master Plan

Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff may see the construction over the course of the next decade of enough new residential space to house 1,200 beds.

That ambitious plan is part of the Flagstaff-based school’s new Sustainable Campus Master Plan, which has now been approved by members of the Arizona Board of Regents, and is also calling for renovations to nearly two dozen existing building on the main campus.

The school, which has seen its enrollment increase from 17,100 students a decade ago to just over 28,000 today, also has plans to renovate its nearly 60-year-old Cline Library as part of the master plan’s phase one work, building a 58,000 addition to that facility in phase two.

Additional plans call for building a 23,400-square-foot addition to the Native American Culture Center, which is located at 810 Knoles Drive and was built in 2011.

A new 3,500-square-foot structure that will house NAU’s nursing program is also scheduled for work as part of the master plan’s phase one projects.

The plan also tackles a challenge familiar to college campuses everywhere: deferred facility maintenance. Just keeping up with the repairs needed for the school’s buildings is expected to cost around $80 million between now and 2033.

Renovation work on 23 buildings across the campus, meanwhile, is expected to carry a roughly $600 million price tag.

“Not everything in this plan will get implemented,” Bjorn Flugstad, senior vice president for university affairs at NAU, recently remarked to the Flagstaff Business News.

The fate of the many projects listed in the master plan will ultimately depend upon both private giving to NAU as well as state funding.

NAU is the fourth largest institution of higher learning in Arizona, behind the private Grand Canyon University, the public Arizona State University, and the University of Arizona.

​By Garry Boulard

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