New IT faculty of Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts to be set up

The Zug cantonal government and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HL) have jointly agreed that the planned new IT faculty at the institution is to be set up on the Suurstoffi site in Rotkreuz and be operational from 2016.
 
There has been speculation for some months now about where this new faculty was to be sited but, as Markus Hodel, the rector of the HL confirmed, it is to be set up on this site near the railway station in Rotkreuz.
 
Both the authorities in the municipality of Risch and the Zug Estates AG property company had pushed for this site, bearing in mind its excellent transport links and the fact that there is enough space for the faculty to have its own campus as well as the lower costs involved compared with other proposed sites, such as the one in the Herti Centre. Proposed sites at Horw and Sursee, both in the canton of Lucerne, were eliminated as possible sites at an earlier stage. As mentioned, it is expected  the school will be up and running by the autumn term of 2016 as buildings which are to be used temporarily (indicated in yellow on the map) are already under construction.
 
As from 2017 construction of a new building (as shown in a computer-generated image and indicated in red on the map) will start with lecturers and students able to move there in 2019. In the long term, some 1,000 students are expected to register at the IT faculty with a further few hundred students of economics at the Zug Institute of Financial Services.
 
In addition to the teaching facilities, accommodation will also be available on the site for students and employees.
 
It was announced as early as May this year that the head of the new IT Faculty is to be René Hüsler. After initially training as a mechanic, he went on to study IT at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich prior to taking a doctorate in electrical engineering there. He has gained experience in a number of firms operating internationally, not least as an expert in software. He currently heads the department of technology and architecture at the Horw site of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts.