The University of Otago has committed more than $200 million to future-proofing its Dunedin campus.

Several capital projects, including a new Dental School and refurbishing the chemistry building, were approved at yesterday's university council meeting.

The build will be worth as much as Forsyth Barr Stadium to the construction industry, the university says.

Work on the two major projects will begin this year and is expected to be completed by the end of 2018.

The plans have been in development for several years, but yesterday spending of more than $200 million was approved by the council.

Vice-chancellor Prof Harlene Hayne said the projects were ''generational commitments'' to the future of the campus.

''One of the clear features here is the university is making a substantial investment in the things we do well,'' she said.

''We are incredibly proud of the human capital of this university ... but we are equally proud of the facilities in which we have our researchers and students working.

''Within our means, we are trying to move each of these facilities to state-of-the-art capability.''

Chancellor John Ward said ''well over $100 million'' would be spent on the new Dental School and more than $50 million on the refurbishment of the university's Science I (chemistry) building.

The projects were out to tender at present and the university could not comment on when the successful tenders would be announced.

But work on the Science I building is expected to begin in September and the Dental School build is scheduled to start in November.

The new Dental School will be completed by the end of 2018 and Science I will be refurbished by February 2018.

''These substantial developments will give the university a significant boost nationally and internationally, and will reinforce our stellar reputation for teaching and research,'' Prof Hayne said.

''Quality environments and technology of the highest possible standards are vitally important as we go forward as a leading New Zealand research and educational institution.''

The projects would be funded from the university's capital reserves.

Property services director Barry MacKay said the projects would be as significant to the construction industry as Forsyth Barr Stadium or the Otago Corrections Facility were.

''Both projects will be the most challenging, but exciting, we have ever undertaken, in that teaching and research both at the Dental School and in Science I will need to continue throughout the construction phase,'' Mr MacKay said.

A temporary laboratory will be shifted on to the campus so teaching can continue during construction.

Prof Hayne said the projects would provide ''Dunedin and Otago citizens a major injection of confidence that the city is in good heart''.

''The level of construction on campus will be on a scale that has not been seen for many years and will provide a significant boost to the regional economy.''

Health Sciences pro-vice-chancellor Prof Peter Crampton said the new Dental School would ''secure the next generation of dentists, dental technologists and oral health therapists for the foreseeable future'' in New Zealand.

''The University of Otago Dental School is among the very best in Australasia. This secures our status as a leading dental school,'' he said.

Mr MacKay said Auckland architectural firm Jasmax designed the new Dental School.

The building's heritage-listed glass-curtain facade would be replaced with a replica facade that met weather-proofing and technology standards, he said.

The build would be carried out in consultation with Heritage New Zealand, which lists the 1961-built modernist building as a category 1 historic place.

A clinical building of similar size and scale to the Walsh Building (Dental School), would be built beside it to provide extra space for the dental faculty.

The west wing of the Walsh Building and the remainder of the Barningham Building would be removed, and the new 8000sq m clinical building - as well as an 1800sq m atrium and ''social space'' linking to the Walsh Building - would be constructed on the footprint.

In total, 211 dental chairs - 61 more than the existing school - would be housed by the new school.

The 45-year-old Science I (chemistry) building would be re-clad, feature new windows, a new roof and a new exterior design.

Department of chemistry head Prof Lyall Hanton said the new design would ''soften the brutalist concrete'' of the building's modernist design.

Steel cladding, inlaid with impressions of molecules, would project an image the building was for science, he said.

The 6500sq m building would be remodelled and refurbished to the highest scientific standards and feature a ''super-lab'' on the ground floor, he said.

The building would house about 1800 science students.