In an effort to show its commitment to the west side of Michigan, the University’s Board of Regents will hold its monthly meeting in Grand Rapids on Thursday.

As a result of the western Michigan venue, several items that are pertinent to West Michigan will be on the agenda. While Thursday’s meeting is in Grand Rapids, the meetings are typically held on one of the University’s three campuses — in Ann Arbor, Dearborn or Flint.

At the meeting, the Regents will hear reports, among other things, about a partnership between the University and Grand Valley State University to assess the feasibility of off-shore wind turbines in the Great Lakes, the future of the University Health System collaborating with other institutions and a research collaboration to support children with Downs Syndrome and Autism in western Michigan.

About 1,700 current University students and over 10,000 alumni hail from Kent and Kalamazoo counties — the most from anywhere in Michigan outside the Metro Detroit area. About 1,300 students come from other counties in western Michigan.

$26 MILLION IN CONSTRUCTION UNDER CONSIDERATION

The regents are also expected to approve two construction projects on the Medical Campus and at the Institute for Social Research at Thursday’s meeting.

If approved, $23 million will be used for an addition to the Institute for Social Research Building. The project would be partially financed with funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The project will build a four-story addition that will add 44,700 square feet to the building and will renovate 7,200 square feet of current building. The addition will result in new office and research spaces, meeting areas and safe data and biospecimen storage.

The regents will also consider using $3 million to improve the pneumatic tube system — used to send and receive patient documents between 120 stations in the University of Michigan’s Health System — on the medical campus.

The current pneumatic tube system is 23 years old and the controlling computer system is outdated, making the service unreliable. The upgraded service will increase security and make the response and delivery times 30 to 40 percent faster, Ora Pescovitz, executive vice president for medical affairs, and Timothy Slottow, executive vice president and chief financial officer for the University, wrote in a letter to the regents.

REGENTS TO CONSIDER INCREASE IN PARKING FEES

The regents are expected to approve a proposal to increase parking rates by 3 percent annually over the next three fiscal years.

According to a regents communication sent by Slottow, the increase in revenue from the higher parking rates will help pay for the addition to the Thompson Street Parking Structure and the new Fuller Road Station.

The price of a Gold Permit will increase from $1,443 in 2010 to $1,577 in 2013. Currently, Blue Permits cost $611 but will increase to $667 in 2013. Yellow and Orange Permits will cost $153 and $76, respectively, in 2013, an increase from their current prices of $141 and $70.

The new rate for the Gold Permits will remain consistent with parking rates in city-owned structures as determined by the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority.

The rate increases are meant to encourage parkers to use the remote Yellow and Orange Permits, which are serviced by University buses, as opposed to the on-site Gold Permits, Slottow wrote in his letter to the regents.