On Friday, Oct. 22, UCR began construction on its second School of Medicine building. This expansion will help assist the campus in developing a more competitive medical program and accommodate the growing number of students.
The new medicine building is being built behind the current School of Medicine and Education Building and Boyce Hall. Construction on the project is expected to be finished by the summer of 2023.
The facility is expected to utilize approximately 57,000 assignable square feet and will be five stories incorporating classrooms, specialized teaching spaces, lecture halls, administrative offices and study and lounge spaces.
“This building will provide the much-needed space for our medical students, faculty and staff, and it provides a path for the expansion of our medical school class,” said Dr. Deborah Deas, vice chancellor of health sciences and the Mark and Pam Rubin, deans of the UCR School of Medicine. “So much work has gone into the planning and design of this beautiful new building, and this event is a major milestone in the process.”
UCR is 1-of-6 UCs that have a school of medicine. The first class was admitted in 2013 with 40 students; they graduated from the program in 2017.
The mission of the school of medicine is to “improve the health of the people of California and, especially, to serve Inland Southern California by training a diverse workforce of physicians and by developing innovative research and health care delivery programs that will improve the health of the medically underserved in the region and become models to be emulated throughout the state and nation.”
The budget and design of the building was approved in March of this year by The Regents of University of California. The current project manager working on the site is Mihai Gavan, and the planner is Melissa Garrety. Hensel Phelps Construction/CO Architects, which completed the Multidisciplinary Research Building in 2019, was selected as the design/build team for the project.
