New University of North Dakota alumni center in the works

The UND Foundation is quietly raising funds for a new alumni center near the president’s home, one that would replace its office on University Avenue and add space for alumni events.

Foundation representatives said there aren’t that many details that are final at this point, including the construction date. They didn’t say how much they were hoping to raise.

Rick Tonder, the University of North Dakota’s associate director for facilities and planning, said the university hasn’t settled on an exact location, though it’d be somewhere between the president’s home, also called University House, and Chester Fritz Auditorium to the northwest.

Information about the proposed building emerged at the State Board of Higher Education meeting Thursday when UND officials talked about a steam line they had built to the president’s house and extended beyond to the future site of the alumni center.

The university sees the alumni center as part of a general plan for that central part of campus that would include an extension of the Hughes Fine Arts Center, southwest of the president’s home.

President Robert Kelley had proposed an “Avenue of the Arts” corridor from the Museum of Art to Chandler Hall, which houses theater arts, to the Chester Fritz.

Tonder said site planning will start when UND Foundation is ready to move forward. It probably depends on how comfortable the foundation is with its fundraising, he said.

The state board will have to give final approval for the building to occupy the site.

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