Kansas State agriculture is in an era of major transitions, spearheaded by the Agricultural Innovation Initiative. A $220 million project, the plan will add new facilities, renovate current buildings and improve technology and equipment necessary for students and research. 

By 2026, K-State will complete the construction of three new buildings: the Bilbrey Family Event Center, Agronomy Research and Innovation Center and Global Center for Grain and Food Innovation.

In just four months, the university secured more than $80 million from private and corporate donors. This fundraising effort was complemented by a $25 million challenge grant from the Kansas legislature, along with an additional $25 million from an initial legislative appropriation.

Weber Arena was demolished in April 2024, and the Bilbrey event center will replace it as K-State’s rodeo arena. The dean of K-State’s college of agriculture, Ernie Minton, said the replacement of older buildings on campus with those constructed through the innovation initiative is warranted. 

“Many of those campuses have buildings that were built in the 1950s and ‘60s, so they are aging out,” Minton said.

Renovations to Weber Hall are underway, and the Call Hall Dairy Bar will close its doors May 17 to relocate to the Global Center for Grain and Food Innovation. 

Bilbrey Family Event Center

Rodeo team head coach Casy Winn said the new center will mark a dramatic improvement for the rodeo team’s facilities. 

“We’ve worked with some professionals, people that have done it a lot to make sure it’s a really good setup,” he said. “As far as moving stock around, we’ll have lots of pins for that, and not having to go, like all the students camped here and then had to drive to CiCo park, or they camped here and they had to go to Weber. Once that building’s here, they’ll be able to camp here, and the rodeo will be here, so you don’t have to have riding and driving back and forth between two arenas. So that’ll be huge, as far as you know, safer, better for the contestants.”

According to K-State’s website, features of the new building will include:

• 130 feet by 250 feet arena with bleacher seating for 3,000 people
• Stock pens with bucking chutes and roping boxes
• Enclosed 80 feet by 80 feet staging area
• Covered wash area for horses and cattle, as well as 10 small livestock wash pens
• Manager’s office, meeting room, restrooms with showers and a security/first aid room
• An open lobby that features concessions and beverage sales
• Second-floor VIP area with windows overlooking the arena and staging area

Mike Day, K-State department head of Animal Sciences and Industry, said in a promotional video that the event center will round out the “animal science gateway campus.”

“[People will] really appreciate coming out there and not having to deal with campus parking,” Day said. 

Agronomy Research and Innovation Center

Expected to complete construction this year, the agronomy center is located at the north end of K-State’s campus across from Bill Snyder Family Stadium, in an area named the Agronomy North Farm.

K-State agronomy department head Raj Khosla said in a statement for the construction’s groundbreaking that the new facility will provide critical infrastructure which will lead to success in research, teaching and extension missions. 

“In the last 10 years alone, the Department of Agronomy has conducted more than $50 million of research that is initiated right here at the Agronomy North Farm,” Khosla said. “The new Agronomy Research and Innovation Center will bring research teams together from around campus to create new discoveries and solutions that will address the wicked challenges we are facing in agriculture today, and the ones that will come in the future.”

Some research projects planned for the center include:

• How to breed new crop varieties that are prolific and resilient to pathogens and the changing biome.
• How to extend the supply of water by studying the most efficient use of that resource in crops and forages.
• How to solve the “mystery of trillions of microbes that reside in soil” to improve soil health.
• How to use and co-create technology so that farmers of the future can produce more with less inputs.

“The center is a keystone for the college’s vision to strengthen and diversify agribusiness in Kansas and around the globe, and will serve as a demonstration site for public/private partnerships focused on best practices in sustainable/regenerative agriculture, crop production innovation, technology development and training, and conservation and protection of natural resources,” Minton said.

Global Center for Grain and Food Innovation

With construction expected to conclude in 2026, the Global Center for Grain and Food Innovation will connect the Weber Hall and Call Hall buildings, as well as housing the Call Hall Dairy Bar. 

The new facility is intended as a hub for research collaboration within the university and beyond. K-State will allocate 30% of its space for on-site collaboration between public resources and private enterprises, planning to foster an “interdisciplinary environment for effective problem-solving.”

Construction updates and live streams of the agriculture construction sites are available on the K-State website.