Lafayette College's proposed $75 million integrated science center got an enthusiastic approval Wednesday night from the Easton Planning Commission.

The center will unify the biology department now in Kunkel Hall with the computer science department, the environmental science and studies professors, the college's office of sustainability and its center for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education.

"It looks like a great project," said planning commission Chairman Charles W. Elliott.

The project is one of several multi-million-dollar initiatives underway at the school. Plans for new dorms and downtown offices are designed to boost enrollment by 400 students.

While the school will hire more science professors as a result of the plans, about 90 percent of what will go into the science center already exists somewhere on campus, according to Lafayette representative Meghan Madeira.

She said the college considered tearing down Kunkel Hall for the science center, but will instead build it into a hillside sloping off of the Anderson Courtyard next to the Acopian Engineering Center.

Work on the the 102,000-square-foot, five-story science center will start this spring with the demolition of a maintenance facility on the site. Once the site is cleared, construction should take 18 months, Madeira said. She anticipates the center will be open to faculty by the summer of 2019 and to students by that fall.

The building will be a national leader in low-energy consumption for science buildings. It will meet or exceed LEED gold standards, which are the highest for sustainability.

"I wish we had more applicants coming up and announcing they're going to do a LEED gold building," Elliott said.

The project was approved 4-0. Bonnie Winfield abstained because she's a Lafayette professor. Mia Hatzis and William Heilman were absent.

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.