UMKC receives $2 million gift for to build Free Enterprise Center

UMKCcost_al_bz_070706 — The University of Missouri-Kansas City finally has some good news for its lowest-income students. What the poorest students have to pay out of pocket to attend UMKC dropped more than $2,500 last year. And school officials expect that amount to drop further next year. File photo by ALLISON LONG The Kansas City Star

A new Free Enterprise Center is a step closer for the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Volker Campus, thanks to a more than $2 million gift from the Robert W. Plaster Foundation.

The donation from the Plaster Foundation in Lebanon, Missouri, coupled with a $5 million pledge last fall from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, will fund a portion of the $14.8 million Free Enterprise Center. The university is hoping half of the funding will come from the state.

The center, to be built at 215 Volker Blvd. near Russell Stover Candies, is to be a product development hub. Its doors will be open to entrepreneurs, local industry, and high school and college students with business ventures. It will house laboratory space, rapid prototyping equipment and meeting rooms.

This story was originally published April 30, 2014 at 5:35 PM with the headline "UMKC receives $2 million gift for to build Free Enterprise Center."

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