Evansville to Dedicate ‘Transformative’ Medical Campus
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowOfficials in Evansville will Thursday cut the ribbon on what some are calling a transformational project. Steve Becker, director of the Indiana University School of Medicine in Evansville, says the $70 million Stone Family Center for Health Sciences reflects a regional approach to build something together that could not have been accomplished by one individual entity.
"The facility is a phenomenal world class facility which, by its own merits, warrants great attention. But in reality, it is all the collaboration the coming together of our region to support this project that really is transformative," said Becker. "I think it has injected a can-do spirit in southwestern Indiana and you can see the downtown literally transforming right now."
Officials broke ground on the four-story, more than 140,000-square-foot facility in October 2015. It will serve as the home for medical education programs for Indiana University, the University of Evansvillle, and the University of Southern Indiana, who all collaborated on the project.
The campus features a simulation center on the second floor, a dental clinic from the IU School of Dentistry, and a research facility for the Indiana Clinical Translational Sciences Institute that Becker says will allow for clinical research that had not previously been done in Evansville.
Becker adds the facility will be a major boon to downtown Evansville.
"We’ll have 400 to 500 graduate students training in the heart of downtown Evansville. Already, the vast majority of my students have moved downtown," said Becker. "We have several new projects underway. A second major hotel is under construction. We have a new 150-unit apartment complex being built three or four blocks from the campus, so you can see all these projects already jump starting. I am optimistic that the downtown Evansville core will become the center of what every great region needs, which is a vibrant downtown core."
The facility was named in honor of Connecticut-based SS&C Technologies Inc. founder Bill Stone following a $15 million donation earlier this year.
Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke will lead the dedication ceremony and will be joined by Lieutenant Governor Suzanne Crouch, IU President Michael McRobbie, UE President Christopher Pietruszkiewicz, and USI President Ronald Rochon.