EAST LANSING - The goal of the Student Greenhouse Project is to build a tropical oasis in the heart of Michigan State University's oft-wintry campus.

The 75-foot-tall biodome would include winding pathways flanked by lush tropical plants, chirping birds and not one but two waterfalls.

The group began receiving donations for it shortly after MSU officials announced plans to tear down a greenhouse complex on north campus.

In 1997.

What stands between those ambitions and reality?

Ten million dollars, estimated Jacob Bruner, a junior double-majoring in mechanical engineering and horticulture. And that’s just to build it. Millions more would likely be needed to support the biodome long-term.

“We see it as an intersection between technology and nature,” Bruner said.

He also sees its potential to help students' mental health.

"This is a new center for students to gather and be able to have a tropical environment all year round to help alleviate winter depression."

The group is looking at transparent solar panels, a technology being developed by Richard Lunt, a professor of chemical engineering and materials science at MSU.

The dome would also be equipped with wireless internet, allowing students a break from the wintery landscapes that dominate views from their dorm rooms from November to March.

A rain catching system would irrigate plants within the dome, disconnected from the electrical and water grids.

Current student members were toddlers at most when the project started. Phillip Lamoureux has been championing the idea since the late 1990s. Keeping it alive all these years was “sort of like running on water.”

The decision to tear down the greenhouse complex on north campus 21 years ago drew opposition from students.

"Call it the great greenhouse controversy," the State Journal reported at the time. "Or the butterfly battle."

But both Lamoureux and Fred Poston, then-dean of MSU's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, acknowledge that the complex, built in 1924, was in dreadful condition.

Now retired, Poston recalled an engineer pushing the roof of the greenhouse with his hand and causing it to sway back and forth.

"We had to tear it down," Poston said. "There just was no alternative."

He met with students to talk about the demolition and future plans. A young woman stood up and asked if they could be rebuilt if students raised the money. Poston said yes.

"I was always interested in extracurricular activities for students," Poston said. "We had a group of committed students, and it looked to me at the time that, if they could raise the money, it would be possible to get it built someplace on campus."

Lamoureux was at MSU taking some undergraduate physiology courses when he got involved. Poston's approval kicked off a promising time for the group. It secured a $250,000 commitment from the MSU's student government body, thought "not a cent" of that money was ever paid, Lamoureux said.

The Student Greenhouse Project and MSU went back and forth on fundraising and where the new greenhouse would end up.

An account with approximately $20,000 in it is housed within University Advancement. However, the Student Greenhouse Project can't spend that money without first coordinating with a college or unit on campus that has a budget officer, MSU spokesperson Jessi Adler said.

Funds for a project like this would be administered through the sponsoring college, not the student group, she explained.

No one donated to the fund for a decade between 2007 and 2017, she said. That streak was broken earlier this year when someone pitched in $50.

The original roster of students pushing the project graduated, leaving Lamoureux to rebuild the group in the years that followed. He's kept at it because of the biodome's potential to inspire other communities to build similar natural sites.

"This is the perfect place to have the giant dandelion to blow seeds from," he said.

A design contest was held and a biodome plan won out.

Around 2004, Lamoureux said a potential site between Shaw Hall and Farm Lane was secured. Many of the MSU administrators Lamoureux and the group worked with over the years are gone, meaning he's had to present the idea to a new generation of leaders.

As it stands, the group needs to raise around $35,000 to turn renderings and plans into blueprints and have them evaluated by the university.

The Board of Trustees would then have to vote to give them authorization to plan, followed by even more planning, design and fundraising.

The Student Greenhouse Project has a new website complete with a fundraising option and a virtual walkthrough of the biodome. They're planning on launching a Kickstarter campaign early next year.

After two decades spent on the project, Lamoureux doesn't have any plans to stop until biodomes like the one planned at MSU are found in every community that wants them.

"I"m in this for the long haul," he said. "This is just the first stepping stone."

Contact RJ Wolcott at (517) 377-1026 or rwolcott@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @wolcottr.