The Texas Division of Emergency Management has plans for a $423 million headquarters and emergency operations center in Austin, Texas, the Austin Business Journal reported.

The TDEM is overseen by the Texas A&M University System, whose Board of Regents first approved the project, with a $360 million budget, last November. In February, the board approved a more extensive—and expensive—plan totaling $423 million.

The project reportedly will combine steel-framed and mass timber construction. Work is expected to begin next month.

A new campus with more meeting space

As things stand currently, TDEM occupies offices at 313 Anderson Lane, near the intersection of Interstate 35 and Highway 183, but this location reportedly has limited meeting space. In addition, the agency leases about 25,000 square feet of meeting rooms at a nearby hotel and has also converted 10 to 15 guest rooms there into additional meeting spaces.

READ ALSO: Top 5 Office Projects Under Construction in Austin

The plans approved in November specified a 296,000-square-foot campus on 48 acres at 4125 S. Farm-to-Market Road 973, east of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. The complex would have included a five-story office building and the new state emergency operations center, but the recently approved amendment expanded the scope.

The extra funding will add a 38,000-square-foot sixth floor to the office building, as well as expand the overall property with a 15,400-square-foot warehouse, a 900-space parking garage and a 1,200-square-foot secure facility for the processing of sensitive compartmented information.

The new emergency operations center will be 90,068 square feet and designed to withstand 200 mph windstorms. The building is set to include meeting rooms and spaces for a joint information center, press conference room and GIS workroom.

Austin’s office pipeline soars

Austin had some 4.3 million square feet of office space under construction as of March, representing 4.6 percent of total stock, according to a recent CommercialEdge report. The metro lagged Dallas-Fort Worth, (more than 5.1 million square feet in the development pipeline), but surpassed Houston (about 1.8 million square feet underway).

Notable office projects that came online in Austin in the first quarter of this year include Uptown ATX ‘s One Uptown, a 381,739-square-foot Class A mid-rise that is part of Brandywine Realty Trust’s 66-acre mixed-use community dubbed Uptown ATX. At full build-out, the campus will include 3.2 million square feet of residential, retail and office space.

AUSTIN, Texas — The pro -Palestine protest at the University of Texas at Austin made headlines nationwide.

Over 50 people, including a photojournalist, were arrested at Wednesday’s protest, and that was just the beginning of what would be a news-filled week.

It’s been a busy week at UT, to say the least. From protests to arrests to the suspension of a pro-Palestine student group, CBS Austin got a front row seat to it all.

“It was extremely disturbing to see,” said District 9 council member Zo Qadri.

Qadri and other council members weighed in on the protests and how they were handled.

“What we saw was seemingly peaceful protestors, exercising their first amendment rights,” said District 2 council member Vanessa Fuentes.

The order to deploy Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to the protest came from the direction of Governor Greg Abbott.

“For some reason, the governor felt it necessary to call in state troopers in riot gear to quell what seemed to be a very peaceful protest,” said District 5 council member Ryan Alter.

What started at as a peaceful protest organized by the UT student group Palestine Solidarity Committee, would erupt into complete chaos.

Hundreds of members of several law enforcement agencies overtook the campus, and 57 arrests were made, including several UT students, for criminal trespass.

“I still don’t understand why these protestors were met with the response that they were met with; the reception they were met with,” Qadri said. “Why were they met with the type of force they were met with? Why was DPS involved? Why was UTPD, you know, out here? Why was APD involved in the manners they were involved?”

Some of the students arrested spoke to CBS Austin Thursday. One said the zip ties used to restrain her were too tight, injuring her arms. She also said an officer knelt on her back during the arrest, despite her getting on the ground voluntarily and not resisting.

“What we saw was an excessive and flagrant use of force,” Fuentes said.

The same day of the protest, UT President Jay Hartzell released a statement, defending his decision to bring in law enforcement agencies on campus, stating that the Palestine Solidarity Committee had threatened to occupy the campus.

Thursday, all of the protestors arrested were released from the Travis County jail and charges would be dropped.

“That is the system working, right?” Alter said. “I’m very encouraged to see that our county attorney Delia Garza did drop those charges, because they didn’t seem to be appropriate.”

A planned protest at UT on Thursday against the state-mandated diversity, equity, and inclusion ban was canceled and another, albeit much calmer, pro-Palestine protest took place.

Also on Thursday, several faculty members and students called for the removal of Hartzell and noted that they were putting forward a statement of no confidence in UT’s president.

“The UT community needs to decide what should and shouldn’t have happened and figure out what broke down and what quite didn’t meet the public’s expectations,” Alter said. “ The president is ultimately the one who is in charge and responsible, and so it’s my hope that he will use this as a learning lesson.”

Friday, UT suspended the Palestine Solidarity Committee, citing an alleged violation of institutional rules.

The university also handed out a letter stating that anyone who was warned or arrested from criminal trespass could be arrested or re-arrested if they returned to campus, but said it’s an interim action, which means they’d still be allowed on campus for academic reasons and could still access university resources with approval.

The DEI protest that was supposed to take place Thursday is slated to happen on Monday afternoon.