NEW BEDFORD — The UMass Board of Trustees gave the green light to a $48 million expansion of SMAST Wednesday, effectively approving a land transfer from the federal government of just under 3 acres.
UMass plans to build 55,000 square feet of new education and research space on the property, formerly home to a Naval Reserve Training Center. The project will nearly double the current space for the School for Marine Science and Technology.
SMAST has a field of studies that includes ocean modeling and monitoring, fisheries science and management, coastal systems science, ocean acoustics, biogeochemistry and remote sensing and ocean engineering.
Its research has been praised locally for producing data that has helped the city's fishing industry.
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