School held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday.
MONTCLAIR -- A new, $66 million, six-story building on the campus of Montclair State University is an example of a positive collaboration between the public and private sectors, school and government officials said Thursday while officially unveiling it.
The 143,000 square foot building was funded partially by private donations, and in part by the "Building Our Future" bond act, which was approved by New Jerseyeans in a 2012 referendum vote. In a joint celebration Thursday, officials marked the completion of the business center, and its renaming of the now so-called "Mimi and Edwin Feliciano School of Business."
The couple's donations helped pay for the new building, as well as other developments on the school's campus, officials said.
"This is ushering in an exciting new era for Montclair State University," the school's president, Susan Cole, told a large crowd during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday evening.
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Cole spoke both of the donors' "deep commitment" to the school, and of the bond funding, which she advocated heavily in favor of.
"This is the first significant, concrete manifestation of the enormous value of the (bond act) to the people of New Jersey," she said.
The building, she said, is state-of-the-art, and includes high-tech facilities like a 35-unit 3D printer lab, 12 Bloomburg terminals, and a financial resource center. It will serve the school's current 2,800 business majors, and 20,000 other students who choose to take classes at the growing school, officials said.
Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno commended Cole and the school for turning the bond - which provided $750 million for projects at schools across the state - into what she called a tangible advantage for the state's students.
"Thank you for making this a game changer for so many people," she said to the school and the donors.
"This is a school that reaches out, this is a school that understands it has to be a part of a larger community."
The building is one of two large infrastructure projects the school is undertaking as part of the $94 million it received from the state bond. The other is a 107,500 square foot Center for Environmental and Life Sciences.
Expansions at the college, officials said, would not be possible without private contributions. In addition to the Feliciano's donations, Montclair State also recently received an anonymous $20 million gift, the largest in its history.
Mimi Feliciano said her donations are motivated by the hope that they will inspire students in the future. Feliciano said her own business success was thanks to her parents, whose belief in her inspired her to succeed.
"I wanted to prove to (my parents) that they didn't waste their time and energy on me," she said during the ceremony.
"Now, (the students) need to make us proud...because we believe in them."
Jessica Mazzola may be reached at jmazzola@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @JessMazzola. Find NJ.com on Facebook.