Gov. Baker Helps Salem State Celebrate $30 Million SSU BOLD Grant

SALEM, MA — Salem State's Recital Hall more resembled a pep rally than a news conference on Tuesday as students, staff and administrators helped celebrate a $30 million state grant to offset smart building construction and renovation costs associated with the SSU BOLD campus consolidation initiative.

Gov. Charlie Baker, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, as well as State Sen. Joan Lovely (D-Salem) and State Rep. Paul Tucker (D-Salem) — both SSU alums — were on hand for the announcement of the school's share of $165 million in higher-education grants awarded to state community colleges and universities.

"This is a place and a space where a lot of kids are going to want to be going forward and where a significant number of opportunities to do great things in the work world once they finish will be available to them," Gov. Baker said. "We think, in some ways, it will help us significantly help enhance your ability and ours to generate significant contributions to support these programs"

Lt. Gov. Polito said the project will alter the campus footprint through the sale of the South campus and provide updated health care and STEM spaces that will positively impact students. The project price tag is $84 million total with the state now picking up $30 million and the remaining $54 million coming from the school and private donors.

The project is part of SSU's "One Campus" vision that sheds the South Campus and consolidates operations at the North and Central campuses. The sale of the South campus will open the 23-acre property to redevelopment in the city.

Lovely and Tucker sponsored the bill authorizing the sale — which Baker signed in September.

"Our team has worked very hard over the years — even prior to my presidency — to secure this investment," Salem State President John Keenan said. "This announcement allows us to move forward with a transformational project that will allow us to unify our campuses and address the most urgent infrastructure needs, while at the same time meeting the urgent workforce needs of our region."

SSU BOLD includes the sale of South Campus, renovation of the former Horace Mann School building, including new nursing and occupational therapy laboratories; and the construction of a Meier Hall Addition with modernized life sciences labs and the re-purposing of underutilized space in the Frederick E. Berry Library and Learning Commons.

"SSU BOLD provides us with an opportunity to improve and modernize spaces for some of our most high-demand programs," Keenan said, "that support the largest and growing industries in our region — the life sciences and health care.

"Today's announcement is an investment in our students' futures and the economy of the North Shore region."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)