Grand Valley State University students living in on-campus housing for the 2012-13 school year will see a modest increase in room and board costs.

The GVSU Board of Trustees voted to increase housing rates by 1.56 percent, or between $24 and $75 per semester, during Friday’s meeting. The 14-meal dining plan will also increase by $45 per semester for Fall 2012, raising the total cost for students up to $1,260.

Administrators said the increase, which follows this year’s freeze on room and boarding rates at the university, is due to rising personnel costs and expenses related to supplies, materials and maintenance.

“We work to make sure that our dining options are attractive to students,” said Andy Beachnau, director of Housing. “We know they contribute to connecting and retaining students while supporting their academic and personal goals.”

The trustees also approved the construction of a new field research building that serves GVSU’s Annis Water Resources Institute, located on the shores of Muskegon Lake near the Lake Michigan Center, where AWRI is housed.

The new structure will replace the existing field station, which no longer has the capacity to serve the needs of AWRI.

Among the features of the AWRI’s new 14,800 gross-square-foot, LEED-certified design plans are state-of-the-art research labs, a mesocosm (tanks) facility, a boat loading bay, researcher and graduate student offices and secure storage space.

The research labs are designed specifically for the study of emerging issues facing the Great Lakes, such as invasive species and climate change.

“We need the research to help us understand what the problems are, and more importantly, what the solutions are,” Alan Steinman, director of AWRI, told trustees on Friday. “And the lab space that we’ll have in this new building will allow us to do the kind of research, give us the facilities we need to really stay on top of these kinds of problems.”

Private donations, university capital development funds and an existing federal grant will pay for the $3.4 million project, with a construction start-date scheduled for August 2012 and a final completion date of December 2013.

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