AND NEW CHEMISTRY BUILDING NEARLY COMPLETE UNION RENOVATIONS

By Laura L. Otto

UWM is undergoing a makeover. Construction of a new chemistry building on Kenwood Boulevard is nearing completion, and a much-needed face-lift for the UWM Student Union is set to conclude by the end of the year.

The new chemistry building replaces the current 1970s-era structure. The $118 million four-story, 163,400-squarefoot building will provide modern space for the nearly 5,000 UWM students who take chemistry and biochemistry classes each year.

The new building will consist of classrooms, lecture halls, offices and formal and informal collaboration spaces. Its design is intended to connect researchers, students and the

STEM community in a common area on campus.

The new facilities will support learning for UWM chemistry students and students in fields ranging from freshwater sciences to engineering, said Kristen Murphy, chemistry professor and department chair. The building is scheduled to open in late 2023 or early 2024.

Live photos of the construction can be found by searching online for “UWM chemistry webcam.”

Across Maryland Avenue to the east, the Student Union is being transformed. The 350,000-square-foot building, which was built in stages in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, gets around 20,000 visitors a day during the academic year.

Current students are already enjoying the new furniture and large windows that brighten the ground-floor concourse with natural light for the first time. The basement-level Gasthaus will soon have a refreshed look, too.

The space that once held the UWM Bookstore has been divided, housing the PantherShop on one side of a new corridor and the Tech Store, Books by eCampus, and Center for Community Based Learning, Leadership and Research on the other side.

Another focus of the $40.7 million renovation has been upgrading the Union’s mechanical, electrical and alarm systems, and restoring the exterior.