As initial efforts get underway for the expansion of the Ohio University medical campus in Dublin, the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine will soon have a new home in Athens on the recently approved “Union Street Green.”
The project, which will serve as a “live, learn, work, play” environment, as Shawna Bolin, director of University Planning and Space Management, described, will serve both HCOM and engineering students. It is set to be constructed in the space near West Green and West Union Street, in closer proximity to OhioHealth O’Bleness Memorial Hospital.
The initial design for the new green, which was approved during the March Board of Trustees meeting, is projected to cost the university nearly $9 million. Overall, the project is slated to cost an estimated $65 million to complete — $60 million of which will be paid for through institutional funds and debt. The remaining $5 million is expected to come from HCOM's reserves.
The design of the first phase of the project is set to begin in May 2017 and is projected to conclude in April 2018. Construction for that phase is slated to begin in September 2018 and is expected to be completed in November 2020. Timing for the second phase of the project has yet to be determined, Bolin said in an email.
According to the project summary, the first phase will provide spaces for new classrooms and lecture halls.
Modern medical education, HCOM Dean Kenneth Johnson explained, has been “moving away from large lecture halls,” instead requiring rooms fit for smaller, team-based learning. The new facilities, which will be constructed just after the school plans to launch its new curriculum, assumes HCOM will vacate its spaces in Grosvenor, Irvine and Wilson halls, which currently house classrooms and lecture halls for medical students.
“To start a medical school in old dorms was a good way of getting a medical school up and running,” Johnson said. “And when you’re thinking about wise investments ... creating academic space that’s in line with what we have in Dublin and Cleveland, and helping us to be a competitive medical school and giving us adequate space for our students and our faculty to run a medical education program is paramount.”
Currently, only two lecture hall-style rooms accommodate all of the first-year and second-year medical students in Irvine Hall, Susan Williams, faculty representative for the Board of Trustees, said.
“We are revising our year one and two medical curriculum to incorporate more active learning in lieu of standard lectures,” Williams, assistant professor of anatomy in HCOM, said. “Lecture halls with rows and rows of stadium-style seating is just not flexible enough to allow non-lecture activities such as small group and problem-based learning activities with all 140 students in the same room.”
The project also provides the university with a temporary remedy for its ongoing dilemma with “high levels” of deferred maintenance, Bolin said.
According to the most recent estimates, all HCOM buildings currently have a backlog of about $81 million in deferred maintenance — a number that is projected to drop to about $25 million following the completion of the HCOM Phase 1 project because Grosvenor, Irvine and Wilson would no longer be listed in that backlog.
Bolin said those three buildings could be used for housing or administrative purposes once HCOM leaves them.
With the approval of the Athens City Council, the university also plans to acquire nearby Moore Avenue to connect the Union Street Green with buildings such as the Academic and Research Center, providing “proper pathways and pedestrian access” for HCOM and engineering students and faculty.
“I really do think that we’ve put together a plan that uses everything for its highest investment purposes,” Johnson said. “It is my hope that this not only cedes a new green, but stimulates the development of the City of Athens as well.”
