Campus construction continues and new partners continue to join Wichita State University. An update on progress around campus:

Hyatt Place at Wichita State University is open. The hotel offers 106 suites.

The Hyatt Place is expected to draw people in town for campus visits and events, sports competitions and who are working with Innovation Campus partners.

Its website is available at: hyattplaceatwichitastateuniversity.com.

NetApp moved into partnership building P3 on 18th Street near Oliver earlier this spring. It is a temporary home for the Fortune 500 global data storage and cloud management company.

A permanent home is under construction south of 18th Street, between Oliver and Innovation Drive.  The proposed 168,000-square-foot NetApp Wichita site is planned for occupancy by late 2021 / early 2022.

In October, Wichita State broke ground on Wayne and Kay Woolsey Hall, the new home for the W. Frank Barton School of Business. 

The new building in the heart of the Innovation Campus will be a 125,000-square-foot facility that is targeted to be certified with a LEED Silver rating. The highly efficient, natural light-filled building has a three-story atrium with social stair, classrooms of multiple sizes and configurations, a 300-seat auditorium, a multi-purpose room overlooking the water, faculty and staff offices, business labs and centers, and many conferencing and study spaces throughout the building that will be open to all students.

A privately funded elevated pedestrian bridge will span more than 300 feet across the water feature west of Woolsey Hall. The bridge’s three-pronged shape symbolizes integration of academics, industry and research.

The building is expected to be complete in spring 2022.

In September, Deloitte and Wichita State University announced the launch of The Smart Factory @ Wichita, a groundbreaking and immersive experiential learning environment that will accelerate the future of manufacturing as innovation and new technologies continue to reshape operations and the modern enterprise.

The 2-story building is located at on Innovation Boulevard near 19th Street. The facility is expected to open to clients, industry partners and students next year.

The Smart Factory @ Wichita will be a net-zero impact smart building on a smart grid featuring 60,000 square feet of sustainable space.

In September, Wichita State announced the naming of the Jerry Moran Center for Advanced Virtual Engineering and Testing.

The 20,000-square-foot facility on WSU’s Innovation Campus was formerly known as the Advanced Virtual Engineering and Testing Labs (AVET). It is located at Oliver and 18th streets and opened in January.

 AVET houses a crash-test lab and virtual engineering labs that were formerly housed in the NIAR building on Mid-Campus Drive.

Martin Defense Group (formerly Navatek LLC), a contractor focused on technology research for U.S. government agencies such as the Department of Defense and NASA, opened an office in the John Bardo Center (JBC) in fall 2020.

MDG is hiring full-time engineers and scientists, including a director, as well as a half-dozen WSU students, as part of an annual and recurring applied learning program. MDG plans to expand staffing to 20 engineers and scientists within the next 24 months.

The athletic department’s Student-Athlete Center, next to Cessna Stadium, opened in August. The Student-Athlete Center will house academic support services for student-athletes as well as coaching offices for track/cross country and men’s and women’s golf, as well as a team room, locker rooms, athletic training, and weight room for the track and cross country team.  

Renovations were completed late this summer for the coaching and administrative areas in Charles Koch Arena.  The project updated the coaching and staff offices for men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball, and marketing and development departments.  The Champions Club was also remodeled as part of the renovations. 

In August, Alice Aycock’s Twister Grande, was installed near the intersection of Innovation Boulevard and 17th Street just south of the John Bardo Center. The sculpture is the 81st piece in the Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection. 

In October, two additions to Memorial ’70 were unveiled.

A new sculpture recognizes the eight members of the Wichita State football team who survived the 1970 plane crash in Colorado. The names of teammates who landed safely in Utah that day were added to the existing upright Memorial ’70 monument.

 The Memorial ’70 monument honors the 31 people – 14 student-athletes, 14 staff and boosters and three crew members – that died as a result of the crash. The team was headed to Utah State for a game the next day.