Funding for the Wirtz Quadrangle construction, $75,000 more than orginally estimated, was approved by the Board of Regents Thursday and the project will begin in August.

“The original figure was about $360,000, the new figure came in around $434,000,” said NIU President John La Tourette, but there were several explanations for the new figure, he said.

NIU requested the project to be included in the 1986 fiscal year as part of a build-Illinois plan, said Eddie Williams, vice president for Finance and Planning.

La Tourette said because the contract with the first architectural firm selected to work with NIU on the project was cancelled by the State Capital Development Board, it was delayed.

“We’re kind of at two years behind where we wanted to be,” he said. “During that time, the cost was of course escalating.” The project is scheduled for completion in June.

Because the Chicago suburbs are growing, it is difficult to find construction firms to make bids, La Tourette said.

Carol Stream, Elgin, Aurora and Crystal Lake are among the top ten home-building towns, according to an article in the Feb. 16 Chicago Sun-Times.

Three projects around the Wirtz Quadrangle are scheduled to begin this school year. Asbestos removal from the University Health Services, Lucinda Avenue improvements and a corridor between Adams and Williston halls connecting the Martin Luther King Commons and the quadrangle.

“It’s a matter of not just cost, but a matter of trying to get the projects done in some orderly fashion so that we don’t have chaos,” La Tourette said.