Missouri Southern approved a contract on its second major construction project in four months.

The Missouri Southern State University Board of Governors, at its regular Friday meeting, awarded a contract to build a new 84,000-square-foot health sciences building to Dalton Killinger Construction, Joplin.

Missouri Southern Senior Vice President Terri Agee said Dalton Killinger bid $11,923,879 to build the  building, which will be located on land facing Duquesne Road that is currently used for parking, just south of Taylor Auditorium.

"We are pleased that we received five bids for the construction of the health sciences building and we are even more pleased that every bid came in lower than what the architect had estimated," Agee said. "There was a spread of about