By: Deborah Johnson Wood
There's considerable construction activity on the corner of Michigan and Division in Grand Rapids. Come April, that activity will include the groundbreaking for the $90 million Secchia Center, the new home of the MSU College of Human Medicine.
The seven-story structure will rise atop the five-level parking structure currently under construction. Leading-edge technology, much of it yet to be designed, will equip classrooms with the means to create realistic simulations teach students how to respond to patients in crisis or to practice surgical techniques.
Designers created the 180,000-square-foot facility with hundreds of classroom configurations to accommodate intimate study areas for the 350 students. The facility also includes several lecture auditoriums. Indoor-outdoor spaces include a main floor terrace (which is six stories up) on the building's southeast side overlooking the city, and a four-story glass atrium on the west side overlooking the Grand River.
"The care we've given to how the students and other learners move through the building will encourage them to mingle with one another," says Dean Marsha D. Rappley, MD.
"We asked the architect to give us a design that's compatible with other architecture in the city. We want to have our own character, but we want to be part of the landscape and we want to embrace, and be embraced by, the people of Grand Rapids as their medical school."
The center will be LEED certified, and has a completion date of 2010.
Christman Company is the construction manager. URS Corporation/Health is handling project management, engineering, and is the architect of record. Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Ellenzweig designed the building.
Source: Marsha D. Rappley, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine
Related Articles
A Minute with Jerry Kooiman
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.