Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories will build a new event center at its Pullman campus to accommodate more conferences and business meetings.

With a footprint of about 80,000 square feet – nearly four times the size of SEL’s existing event facility – the new center will feature a variety of meeting spaces and a large meeting hall. It will be built on the southeast corner of the company’s campus on the north side of Pullman.

“We are excited about this project and what it means for our company and community,” Stephanie Schweitzer, vice president of marketing and communications, said in a news release. “We’ve outgrown the current space and this center will allow us to better accommodate a number of our company’s larger annual events, host new events, and provide another venue option for our community.”

Schweitzer said in an email the new center will provide more space for SEL’s annual supplier conferences that draw more than 300 independent suppliers and its sales meetings attended by more than 450 employees.

Construction costs for the events building will be determined later, in the final design phase.

Spokane-based Bernardo|Willis Architects is designing the event center, which is expected to begin construction in late 2019. It is slated for completion in 2021. The SEL construction team will oversee construction.

Schweitzer, which invents, designs and builds digital products and systems to protect power grids, has more than 5,200 employees around the world with customers in 164 countries. It owns and operates three manufacturing facilities in Pullman, Lewiston and Lake Zurich, Illinois.