LeTourneau University to build $50M, four-story academic facility with event space, more

Published 5:45 am Tuesday, January 27, 2026

LeTourneau University expects to break ground April 17 on the centerpiece of its ongoing $180 million capital campaign – the 100,000-square-foot Christian Polytechnic University Center.

“It’s a big project. It’s very exciting for us at the university,” said Jonathan Wilcoxson, chief of staff for university President Steven Mason.

Wilcoxson described the facility as a mixed-use academic building that will house the School of Engineering, College of Business  and Department of Computer Science.

“It’s providing, in a way, custom-built learning environments that are technologically sophisticated and will allow us to tell the story of what LeTourneau University is all about,” he said.

The top floor of the four-story building will be home to a large event space that will seat 550 people banquet style. The fourth floor will include a retractable wall that will provide breakout space. The fourth floor also will provide an outdoor event space. In addition to university uses, it will be made available for public rental as well.

The university will continue to use an existing event space that can accommodate about 300 people.

“We’re just finding we’ve outgrown that at enrollment events,” he said, adding that the university is seeing more visitors than ever.

The Christian Polytechnic University Center will cost about $50 million to build. Wilcoxson said it will be ready for the start of classes in fall 2028.

In information on the capital campaign website, the university description of the project says, “The Christian Polytechnic University (CPU) Center is a transformative project that will position LeTourneau University as the destination for Christian polytechnic higher education. The CPU Center will create industry-ready learning labs, innovative collaboration spaces, and other needed facilities within a center that embodies LeTourneau’s unique identity as The Christian Polytechnic University. … It will create a dynamic sandbox for the hands-on learning that typifies the LeTourneau experience.”

Wilcoxson said he thinks of the new facility as the “brick and mortar representation of what LeTourneau University is all about,” with many spaces that will  provide “hands-on” educational experiences.

The center also will include a “maker space.” Wilcoxson described it as a space where “all university students will be able to create, in a noncurriculum setting, projects they are passionate about.”

That space will include a variety of equipment, from work benches and woodworking equipment to a 3D printer and screen printing equipment.

Wilcoxson said the university already has raised $160 million in its $180 million capital campaign. That campaign includes funding for the already completed Athletic and Human Performance Air Dome and an expansion of the Paul and Betty Abbott Aviation Center that is underway, as well as other projects.

The Christian Polytechnic University Center will be built in the space previously occupied by the Memorial Student Center.

It has already been demolished to make way for this project.

“It has lived its useful life, and it was in a prime location,” Wilcoxson said.

The Christian Polytechnic University Center also will be home to the Center for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurial Leadership along with the university’s affiliated nonprofit RG Research and Development, Inc. The nonprofit’s goal is to “explore and develop innovative opportunities in the education space as well as related goods and services that can benefit LeTourneau University. RGRD seeks to promote original ideas, offerings, and products from LETU faculty, staff, and students.”

To that end, the center will include offices for students to meet, for example, with manufacturers to present ideas and projects they’re working on.

He noted one such project already in the works – a card game designed to teach children trigonometry skills.

“They actually are meeting already with people like that. They just don’t currently have a suitable space as the young business entity they are,” Wilcoxson said.  The university’s experience with that project has helped to develop the plans for the Center for Free Enterprise, he said.

“Right now, we’re building on it,” he said.