Construction Update

With the Replacement Research Facility in full swing, the Medical School family has recently celebrated one important construction milestone and is ready for another one any day now.

On June 15, the last of the Medical School Building was put back together following 2001’s destruction at the hands of Tropical Storm Allison. The grand staircase – a new feature for the Medical School, linking the ground floor’s Leather Lounge to the newly refurbished basement – was unveiled along with the basement’s amenities.

“Four years and seven days ago, we would have been standing in a foot of water and the basement would have been completely under water. But today we are celebrating the penultimate step in our recovery from Tropical Storm Allison,” said Dean Stanley Schultz at the ceremony, which was held at the top of Another construction milestone RRF commences, basement opens, berm wraps up the grand staircase in the Leather Lounge.

Ten ribbon cutters, including representatives from the new basement occupants, were introduced and cut the orange ribbon after a group countdown by more than 300 faculty, staff, students, and health science center leaders. Following the inaugural walk down the stairs, visitors toured the new basement facilities, which include nine classrooms, problem-based learning rooms, the UT Bookstore, and service centers, such as Quick Copy, Communications, and the UT Supply Mall.

The only section of the basement yet to be completed is the Surgical and Clinical Skills Center, which is a new feature to be added to the Medical School that will combine traditional physician-patient interaction with the latest educational technology, featuring mannequins and robotics. This 11,400 square-foot facility is in the planning stages, and will be open in the basement in the spring of 2006.

The Replacement Research Facility, a six-story research building that is being constructed on the site of the former two-story John Freeman Building, is already two stories tall. It is planned to be ready for occupancy by the fall of 2007 and is estimated to cost $80.53 million, with funding coming from a variety of sources, including two National Institutes of Health grants, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, insurance payments resulting from losses from Tropical Storm Allison, and philanthropic gifts.

The new building will be home to the health science center’s animal care facility and four areas of research focus for the Medical School: the neurobiology of development, the molecular biology of human pathogens, physiological genomics or systems biology, and structural biology. Existing faculty in these disciplines as well as new faculty to be recruited will be housed in the new building.