Harris-Stowe’s new $62 million STEM academic center aims to prepare St. Louis’ future leaders and workforce

Photos by Ella Manthey

At Harris-Stowe State University, work is well underway on the new $62.3 million STEM academic building, which marks the largest capital campaign initiative in the school’s history.

The four-story facility is designed to expand access to science and technology education, prepare students for careers in growing and emerging industries, and strengthen the St. Louis region’s workforce.

The new center will feature 12 modern research laboratories, maker spaces, and eight flexible classrooms designed to reflect real-world work environments. And from the fourth-floor mixed-use space, with includes a 600-person event venue, students, faculty, and guests will take in a sweeping 360 view of St. Louis, with the Gateway Arch and Downtown from one side to the Central West End and Midtown on the opposite wall.

For Dr. LaTonia Collins Smith, President of Harris-Stowe, the project represents both a milestone moment for the university and an opportunity to help shape the region’s economic future.

“As you look at this new STEM building, we’re going to be the gateway to the future,” Collins Smith said during a recent tour of the site. “As the only public institution in the City of St. Louis and the only HBCU here, we’re really excited about making sure that no one is left behind, that anyone who is interested in exploring STEM in any kind of way, that they’ll look to Harris-Stowe due to our affordability, accessibility, and making STEM possible.”

The university broke ground on the 82,443-square-foot facility in January 2026 and anticipates welcoming students into the building in late July or early August 2027. ICS Construction Services Ltd. is building the state-of-the-art facility, with NAVIGATE Building Solutions serving as the owner’s representative for the project.

For Collins Smith, the construction itself is a visible sign of progress.

“Whenever there’s a crane that goes in the building, that shows positive progress,” she says.

The project builds on the university’s efforts to expand its STEM programs over the past decade. Much of that work has been done by Dr. Freddie E. Wills, Jr., Ph.D., who has been on a mission to put the university’s geospatial science and technology program on the map.

As the school’s Vice President of STEM Initiatives and Research Partnerships, Dr. Wills has played a crucial role in adding STEM courses to the curriculum at Harris-Stowe, a historically Black university founded in St. Louis in 1857. As the university’s STEM majors and programs have grown over the past decade, so has the need for updated facilities, Dr. Wills says.

His goal isn’t just to grow the program, though, but also to make it the premier Historically Black College and University (HBCU) for geospatial science and technology in the U.S.

“I know what I felt when I started working here: When I took my tour of the building and I saw the conditions of some of the labs, I just said to myself, ‘There has to be a better way,’” Dr. Wills recalls. “And so, with all the evolvement that we’ve had in the STEM field, the university has evolved to this point. I know there’s going to be a lot of excitement, a lot of jubilation on what’s to come, as well and what Harris-Stowe is going to be able to produce out of this space. And one of the things that I really love about this opportunity is that when universities build buildings, they build them to last forever. And so for years to come, young people will be educated out of this building and will put a lot more talent into the St. Louis workforce.”

Connecting Education to Career Opportunities

The new center comes as Harris-Stowe continues to develop academic programs and partnerships that connect students with career opportunities in fields such as health care, engineering, and geospatial intelligence.

Biology is the university’s fastest-growing degree program, according to Collins Smith, with many students pursuing careers in health care and health sciences. Through a partnership with Barnes-Jewish College Goldfarb School of Nursing, students can earn a bachelor’s degree in biology from Harris-Stowe and a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Goldfarb. Another partnership with Saint Louis University gives mathematics students a pathway to earn an engineering degree.

The university is also expanding opportunities in geospatial intelligence, an area in which Harris-Stowe has recently earned an award of accreditation from the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation. The institution is one of 25 schools nationwide with that accreditation.

Students are already applying geographic information systems (GIS) tools to research local challenges, including emergency response times, Collins Smith says. The work illustrates how STEM skills can be applied across disciplines and used to address issues affecting the community.

The new facility is expected to provide students with improved laboratory environments and equipment that better reflect what they will encounter in professional settings. By aligning education with industry needs, Harris-Stowe aims to help graduates move into the workforce with relevant, practical experience.

That alignment also supports the region’s broader economic development goals. As employers seek talent in technical and scientific fields, universities play an important role in developing the talent and workforce needed to sustain business growth and attract investment.

For Harris-Stowe, the opportunity begins with ensuring more students can see a future for themselves in STEM. She points to graduates who have gone on to become engineers, researchers, biologists, nurses, and occupational therapists.

“We have been able, in the past 10 years, to build a very robust STEM agenda, and we’re excited about that,” Collins Smith says. “If our students were able to do that in a 100-year-old lab, just imagine what could happen when they have equitable lab space to be able to be innovative and creative.”

Preparing Students for a Changing Workforce

The center will also help Harris-Stowe prepare students for a workforce increasingly shaped by emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence.

Collins Smith said the facility will include space for AI education, with an emphasis on teaching students to use the technology ethically and responsibly. She sees that preparation as relevant not only to traditional STEM disciplines but also to professions such as nursing, education, and other fields that rely on human interaction.

“AI will not be able to give you a hug,” she says. “AI will not be able to give you that pep talk to get to the next space. It takes a human to be able to use AI. So, good data in is good data out.”

The university’s approach reflects the changing nature of workforce preparation, where technical proficiency must be paired with critical thinking, ethical judgment, and the ability to adapt as technologies evolve.

Collins Smith also sees the new STEM building as part of a longer educational pipeline. Strong STEM education requires effective teachers, she says, creating opportunities for Harris-Stowe’s education students and graduates to help introduce younger students to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics career pathways.

Dr. Harvey R. Fields Jr., Ph.D., Founding Dean of the College of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics at Harris-Stowe, echoes Collins Smith, adding that Harris-Stowe faculty will also benefit from the new facility.

“We’ll have, for the first time, some dedicated faculty research labs,” Dr. Fields says. “We have faculty doing some really impactful research, but they’re doing it either in a partnership with another institution, or they do it in the teaching labs when we don’t have classes. But now we have dedicated spaces for them to continue to expand, and as we recruit faculty going forward, we can recruit faculty to come in with ideas about how they would like to expand their own research programs and interests and allow us to really strengthen the niche of research that we can uniquely contribute to the region and beyond.”

An Investment in Midtown and the Region

The project is also part of a broader coalition of investment and development in Midtown St. Louis, where Harris-Stowe has opportunities to connect students with nearby businesses and institutions.

Collins Smith said partnerships with local employers and destinations have helped students find jobs close to campus while contributing to the surrounding economy. Students work at businesses and destinations in the area, creating connections between the university and the neighborhood.

Those relationships reflect the role Harris-Stowe hopes to play as both an educational institution and a community anchor. By preparing students for in-demand careers, connecting them with employers, and bringing students to St. Louis from across the country, the university can contribute to the region’s long-term talent pipeline.

As part of that goal, every summer, students from HBCUs across the U.S. travel to St. Louis for the Immersion in GEOINT program at Harris-Stowe. The four-week program is led by Dr. Wills, with support from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). During the month of July, students attend intensive sessions across St. Louis designed to “develop geospatial intelligence interest and skills in students from the nation’s HBCUs,” according to the NGA.

This summer marked the program’s fifth cohort, with 20 students representing 13 unique HBCUs, including Morehouse College, Spelman College, Howard University, and Hampton University. Dr. Wills says that after investing in these students and their geospatial education and careers over the past few years, he’s beginning to see the next generation of mapping talent graduate into the workforce.

“We’re at the point where we’re starting to see results,” he says. “With a program like this, your outputs are sometimes delayed because you’re working with students that are rising sophomores, rising juniors, rising seniors. We’re now seeing students entering internships in the industry and startups, and we’re seeing them start to go to graduate school in the geospatial field.”

Collins Smith hopes the new facility will continue to strengthen that momentum, making Harris-Stowe an even more prominent destination for students interested in STEM and helping more students envision a future in St. Louis.

“We’re really excited about making sure that no one is left behind, that anyone who is interested in exploring STEM in any kind of way, that they’ll look to Harris-Stowe,” Collins Smith says.

Dr. Fields adds that while the building will support STEM students and faculty, it will also be a multidisciplinary space open to all Harris-Stowe students and classrooms for other majors and coursework.

“We wanted this to be a welcoming building so that any student can come in here, any student can sit down, any student can start a study group, and any student can have conversations about what they’re learning, what they’re understanding,” Dr. Fields says. “We want it to be the kind of a space that stimulates and helps ideate what may go forth from their eager minds, as they continue their academic development and maturity here at Harris-Stowe University.”

As the center moves toward completion, the university is also inviting community partners and donors to contribute to its future, including through potential naming opportunities at the new, state-of-the-art STEM facility.

“They’ll be naming opportunities in this space that will live long past all of us,” Collins Smith says. “And so, if there’s anyone who’s interested in creating a legacy and leaving a legacy, we have opportunities for them to do so.”

Ultimately, Collins Smith sees the investment as a commitment to Harris-Stowe’s students and faculty. She hopes the building will give them the confidence and resources to pursue opportunities they might not otherwise have considered and help ensure the St. Louis region has the talent to meet the demands of its evolving economy.

“I feel a great sense of pride, and also, a great sense of responsibility to make sure that this is possible for students and for generations to come,” she says. “This is the largest capital campaign project in the history of Harris Stowe, and it means a lot to be able to show that St. Louis is thriving and to be a part of that.”