FARMINGTON – More than $1 million has been been raised since September for a new state of the art education center at the University of Maine at Farmington.

The college has proposed a new $8 million green education center for their College of Education, Health and Rehabilitation at Lincoln and High streets and is awaiting approval on the project from the Farmington Planning Board.

Earlier this month, the board toured the proposed site and on March 15 will host a public hearing on the project before making a decision.

Hopeful that the project will be approved, the college has headed a strong campaign to raise the $3.2 million needed to supplement the $4.8 million that came thanks to the passing of a state bond issue in November 2001.

Seventy-two percent of Farmington residents who cast ballots then voted in favor of that bond issue.

Mary Sylvester, director of development at UMF, said to date, more than $1 million has been donated to the proposed 44,600-square-foot building. The college is “blessed for the support they’ve received.”

“We have many very generous alumni, foundations and friends,” she said Friday. “We are just getting started.”

The honorary chair of the capital campaign is U.S. Sen. Susan Collins.

Much of the financial contributions are coming from alumni and residents who live or work in the Farmington area, she added. When people have been called on by the capital campaign committee, they answer.

“People see this as an absolutely significant building,” she said. “We can’t do without it.”

The college hasn’t constructed an academic building in some time and Sylvester says potential donors are especially impressed with the center’s “green” component.

If approved, it will be constructed taking into account the utmost environmental standards. That includes geothermal heating and cooling, day lighting and use of recycled steel in the building’s structure.

Not only does it cost the same to build eco-friendly as it would a traditional building, but each year, the costs to operate the building are noticeably lower, said Sylvester.

Sylvester is quick to stress that the college isn’t putting the cart before the horse by raising money before the building application is approved, a sentiment echoed by UMF spokesman Tom Donaghue.

“We have a lot of respect for the process,” he said. “We want people to feel as good about the project as we do. It’s exciting.”

Sylvester said the project is a long time coming, not just for the college, but for the state, which is in dire need of more and better-prepared educators.

“UMF plays a major role in educating future teachers and community health educators. Our facilities here for doing that are badly out of state,” she explained.

Because the college has not yet gotten the project approved, it has no idea of the timeline for it. Sylvester said she thinks the campaign will wrap up in the fall of 2005 and Donaghue said once the ground is broken, construction should last 18 months.

More than half of the college’s 2,000 students are enrolled in the College of Education, Health and Rehabilitation and will use the facility.

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