A major Downtown Phoenix development project hit a big milestone October 5, 2011 with the “topping out” of construction of the Health Sciences Education Building on the campus of the University of Arizona College of Medicine.
The final beam of the building was ceremoniously lifted and secured at its highest point with workers and college staff and faculty celebrating midday Wednesday.
The $129M, 264,000 SF building – being built in a joint venture by DPR Construction and Sundt Construction, Inc. – will allow the state to take the next step in expanding its medical education facilities.
The new six-story building will house administrative offices, lecture halls, classrooms, class laboratories and a learning resource center. CO Architects is the design and executive architect; Ayers Saint Gross is associate architect and master planner.
The College of Medicine-Phoenix plans to expand its class size and add instruction as Northern Arizona University will also bring a physician’s assistant and physical therapy programs to the Health Sciences Education Building.
In its fifth year in Downtown Phoenix, the College of Medicine currently anchors the campus with 192 medical students, admitting 48 per year. After the completion of the Health Sciences Education Building in 3Q 2012, the university plans to admit up to 80 students per class and eventually reach a capacity of 120 per class to address the critical need for physicians in Arizona.
Also on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus are the UA College of Pharmacy and the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, the headquarters of the Translational Genomics Research Institute and International Genomics Consortium, and Arizona Biomedical Collaborative building.
For more information about the Health Sciences Education Building, visit ahsc.arizona.edu.
