STEVENS POINT, Wis. (WSAW) -- The Chancellor and onlookers signed a bright purple beam that was placed on top of the new Chemistry Biology Building at UW Stevens Point.

"Today recognizes that the building is not going to get any taller, we're at the highest point of construction," Director of Facilities and Planning for UWSP Carl Rasmussen said.

The $75 million project isn't opening its doors until Fall of 2018, and will be the first brand new academic building on the UWSP campus in more than 45 years.

"Its been intended not only as a science on display facility but in some respects kind of an academic centerpiece for campus, for everyone," Associate Dean for Budget, Personnel and Facilities for the College of Letters and Science Todd Good said.

The 176,500 square-foot facility will be the new home for the university's Chemistry Department and part of the Biology Department.

It will have 39 teaching laboratories along with 19 additional research laboratories.

"The natural sciences and the biology, chemistry and natural resources are really a centerpiece of this campus and one of its academic strengths. We have over 2500 students that are biology or natural resources majors or minors," Good said.

With that many students at the school interested in science programs, the facility could also help the college recruit future biologists and chemists.

"It really signals a commitment that the state, that the college that the campus has to student learning at UW Stevens Point," Good said.

For professors like Paul Hladky, who is the chair of the Chemistry Department, it means getting to use updated technology needed for scientific research in 2017.

"The idea that I'd be back here and I'd see something this phenomenal built on campus is just fantastic," Good said.

Hladky said the layout of the new building is going to be more beneficial to teaching, with the educational laboratories being more open, so all students can see the instructor during class.

He also said that since the building is brand new, it allows the labs to be tailor-made to what technology will benefit students and teachers most while in a classroom setting. He sees it as just one more draw to a school that already has a strong science department.

In total, the building will have five new lecture halls, 58 new laboratories and 45 new faculty and staff offices.

If construction runs on-time and they don't ruin into bad weather, Rasmussen says the building should be complete by the end of 2017, with the building opening up for classes in fall of 2018.

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UWSP "tops off"' $75 million Chemistry Biology Building - WSAW