NIU leaders held a groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday for a multi-million dollar sustainability center.
The $21.5 million Northern Illinois Center for Community Sustainability (NICCS) will include research focused on energy, water, food and environmental resilience.
Lisa Freeman is the president of NIU and attended the ceremony, which was moved indoors due to rain.
"At Northern Illinois University, sustainability is not a trend or a talking point," she said. "It is a defining part of who we are and how we serve."
The 16,000 square foot facility will include labs for research on water, microplastics, food systems, soil and plant samples.
The state of Illinois is providing $19.1 million for the project. The remainder of funding is coming from in-kind NIU contributions and donor gifts, including from Northwestern Medicine for creation of the food laboratory and from Ray Banks, M.S. ’86 and Eric Erickson.
Construction will continue through the fall of 2027.
The center is expected to open in early 2028.