Eastern Washington University plans to build a 5,000-square-foot recycling center on the north side of its Cheney campus, with site-preparation work scheduled to begin this month.

Shawn King, EWU associate vice president for facilities and planning, says the center will be constructed in two phases and is expected to be finished by early summer 2014. The university has budgeted $3 million for both phases of the project, King says.

In addition to the 5,000-square-foot building, the EWU recycling center plans call for a 4,000-square-foot covered shelter that won't have walls and will provide weather protection for large dumpsters storing metal, wood, and other recyclables.

He says EWU is in the process of selecting a contractor to prepare the project site, which is near the far edge of the university's property and across a maintenance field north of the football stadium. A contractor also will build an access road to the center from Washington Street in that first phase, King says.

The first-phase project site work starting soon is expected to be completed by Sept. 15, King says. He says the site work and the road construction are expected to cost about $2 million.

"The building is still under design," King says. ALSC Architects PS, of Spokane, is the architect on both phases of the project.

King says work on the second phase, budgeted at about $1 million, is expected to start by spring 2014, and will include construction of the main recycling center, which will be a metal building that has warehouse functions for the storage and sorting of different recycled items collected from throughout campus. It also is expected to include bays for the loading of recycled goods into semitrucks for shipments, he says.

"Where we send our recycling depends on the items," King says. "We have a contract with city of Cheney for some of our solid waste. If we store enough other types of recyclables, we can sell to whatever the best market is at the time. We also recycle our food waste."

The building also is expected to have administrative offices and storage space for the university's surplus property, he says. Additionally, the university expects to use some space there to store chairs and tables that it sets up for special events.

King says the state requires the university to attempt to sell surplus items to the public whenever it buys new furniture or building materials. EWU needs to store the items until a surplus sale is held.

"The university gains the revenue that helps for our operations," he says.

King says the recycling center will increase the university's efficiency for its recycling programs.

"We have been doing recycling for some time," he says. "We've kind of done recycling makeshift in our industrial area in a building never designed for recycling. We've made a commitment to recycling, and this helps us mitigate some of our solid waste cost, and as we recycle, then we don't have to pay to have it sent to the waste-to-energy plant."

He adds, "We're expanding our whole recycling operation."