Davenport University announced plans today to spend $10 million on a new campus in downtown Lansing.
Davenport has 14 campuses spread out across the state offering a variety of business, nursing and other college degree programs.
Last year, university officials tried to swap their current Lansing campus complex for a different downtown location. Davenport officials wanted to tear down the old Oliver Towers apartment building and replace it with a new building. But that deal fell apart amid political wrangling at city hall.
Lansing Community College recently reached a deal to buy the apartment building’s parking lot. LCC will also have an option to buy the Oliver Towers.
Rick Pappas is the president of Davenport University. He says this new location is not a consolation prize.
“When we found this location…it really met everything we wanted,” says Pappas. “This particular property is actually an improvement over where we would have been…It’s less expensive as well.”
The new Davenport University campus will open in the fall of 2013. Pappas says the nine story building will be outfitted with the technical upgrades they planned to put in the building on the Oliver Towers site.
That does leave Davenport University with its old campus, which is just a short walk from its future campus.
Pappas says he hopes to close the sale of the university’s old Lansing campus in the next few weeks. Proceeds from that sale will help pay for the purchase and renovation of Davenport’s new capitol city home.
