URBANA — A University of Illinois building partially shuttered for a year and a half because of structural problems is next in line for a major facelift.

Campus officials have proposed a $70 million renovation of the Natural History Building, 1301 W. Green St., home to the School of Earth, Society and Environment, and the School of Integrative Biology, both in the UI's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Much of the building was closed in the summer of 2010 after engineers determined some of the floors were structurally insufficient. Since then the university and Champaign firm BLDD Architects have come up with conceptual plans for a renovation of the building's classrooms, laboratories and offices as well as an update of the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems.

The UI Board of Trustees will meet Friday in Springfield to consider a number of action items, including the proposed renovation of the building.

For several years the university requested money for the Natural History Building from the state, but now officials propose to pay for it with a combination of student fees, university institutional funds and donations.

"This building was in such as state of disrepair, it's almost unusable," campus spokeswoman Robin Kaler said. University officials still hope the state will be able to contribute some money for the project, but "we simply can't wait any longer," she said.

After 40 percent of the building closed in 2010, many offices were combined and some moved to other places on campus, said geology Professor Steven Marshak, director of the School of Earth, Society and Environment. Some labs were relocated to other buildings or other portions of the Natural History Building. Staff, for example, moved the mass spectrometry lab to another portion of the building. Doing so was no small feat. The move required bringing in a specialist from Scotland, moving and calibrating the spectrometer and updating the room's electrical and ventilation systems.

"The problem with this building is it's a hodgepodge of components pieced together at different times: (in) 1892, 1908 and 1924," Marshak said.

All those portions were built before modern laboratory science had been established, he said, and as a result the building does not have features, such as constant air control, needed for modern laboratories.

In recent months administrators drafted a funding plan for the $70 million renovation project: $18 million is expected to be raised from the deferred maintenance fee that students pay; $20 million from funds set aside from the Stewarding Excellence and other ongoing cost-savings programs on campus; $10 million from facility reserves; $4 million in energy conservation reserves; and $7 million in donor funds.

"We're still working on securing the additional $11 million," Kaler said.

The building, just east of the Illini Union, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building's floor space totals about 148,000 square feet and the building's footprint won't change with the renovation, Kaler said.

"It's a really major renovation. We're looking forward to the change," Marshak said.

Faculty, students and staff will face some challenges in the coming years as they will have to move temporarily to other buildings, "but when we return (to the renovated building), it will all seem worth it. It will help with our ability to recruit students and faculty," Marshak said.

In addition to approving the project's budget, the board on Friday will be asked to continue to employ BLDD Architects of Champaign to manage the construction documents, bidding process, construction administration and post construction management. In return the firm will receive a fee of $2.8 million, for a total of approximately $3.2 million including previous work done on the project.

The building project's design is anticipated to be complete by January 2013 and the project itself is expected to be finished by fall 2015.

Also at the Friday board meeting, members will likely approve the appointment of Susan Kies to the post of board secretary, replacing Michele Thompson who is retiring. Trustees also are set to approve the appointment of Robert Easter as interim vice chancellor for research, replacing Ravi Iyer, who is returning to faculty. Easter was most recently the interim chancellor.

The board's meeting will be webcast online at http://www.uis.edu/technology/uislive.html. It is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m.