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Kansas State opens Western Star Global Grain and Food Center
The 178,000-square-foot, three-story facility represents a $130 million investment and the final piece of the university’s $216 million Agriculture Innovation Initiative.
Kansas State University marked the Sept. 18 opening of the Western Star Global Grain and Food Center with a ribbon-cutting that university and government officials called one of the most important days in the school’s and Kansas’s history, World Grain reports.
The project comes a little more than two years after KSU broke ground. The facility is the largest agricultural construction project in KSU history, with a $130 million investment intended to bring researchers, students, and industry partners together.
The center spans 178,000 square feet across three stories and includes specialized teaching and research laboratories, pilot-scale processing spaces, interdisciplinary research areas, a 236-seat lecture hall, and collaboration spaces. It also links Call Hall and Weber Hall through enclosed walkways.
KSU said the center is the final component of its $216 million Agriculture Innovation Initiative, with programming covering bakery, milling, feed and pet food, animal nutrition, and food science focused on quality, safety, and innovation for the global food system, World Grain reports.