Regents approve PUF for projects at four UT institutions

AUSTIN – The University of Texas System Board of Regents voted to allocate $69.6 million of Permanent University Fund capital support for four UT institutions Thursday. The nine-member board also unanimously approved more than $196 million in additional PUF funding for the new medical school and university in South Texas.

The board adopted a recommendation for $50 million as partial funding for the first phase of a UT Southwestern Medical Center West Campus building project in Dallas. The building will be used for educational space and expanded clinical programs. When complete, the project will include an 11-story, 275,000-square-foot facility, a high-tech simulation center and an expansion of the out-patient clinic for faculty practice.

Part of the phase 1 activities includes the demolition of St. Paul Hospital, construction of a new central utility plant and more parking, the first of a 20-year reinvestment plan on West Campus.

A $10 million funding allocation for UT Austin will be used to design and build an annex to the Texas Advanced Computing Center, and is a match to a challenge grant. The supercomputing center supports 1,000 research projects throughout the UT System and across the country. It recently has become one of the university’s most prestigious programs. The center has attracted more than $200 million in federal grants and vendor contributions.

The regents also voted to spend $9.6 million for capital support for regional data centers at UT Arlington and UT MD Anderson Cancer Center. Of the total, $6.5 million will purchase additional diesel generators, additional commercial power feed and other services at the Arlington facility. The remaining $3.1 million will be for design and construction upgrade of generator controllers and other equipment at the Houston Data Center. Another part of the project calls for elevation of the transformers that provide power to the center facilities above the 500-year floodplain level.

About The University of Texas System

Educating students, providing care for patients, conducting groundbreaking research and serving the needs of Texans and the nation for more than 130 years, The University of Texas System is one of the largest public university systems in the United States, with nine academic universities, six health institutions and a fall 2013 enrollment of more than 213,000. The UT System confers more than one-third of the state’s undergraduate degrees, educates two-thirds of the state’s health care professionals annually and accounts for almost 70 percent of all research funds awarded to public universities in Texas. The UT System has an annual operating budget of $14.6 billion (FY 2014) including $3 billion in sponsored programs funded by federal, state, local and private sources. With more than 87,000 employees, the UT System is one of the largest employers in the state.