UNMC’s building boom continues as $447.8 million in educational and patient care buildings in Omaha and Kearney reach various points of completion.
Tower cranes dot the landscape on UNMC’s Omaha campus as work continues on the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center, the Lauritzen Outpatient Center, and the Lozier Center for Pharmacy Sciences and Education, and UNMC Center for Drug Discovery.
The Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center, expected to be completed in early 2017, will include three areas dedicated to cancer:
· a 10-story, 98-laboratory research tower named the Suzanne and Walter Scott Cancer Research Tower;
· a 108-bed inpatient treatment center named the C.L. Werner Cancer Hospital, and
· a multidisciplinary outpatient center.
Five new translational cancer researchers have been added to the staff in recent months. The recruits hail from some of the nation’s top scientific and medical institutions. Collectively, they bring more than $5 million in cancer research funding to Nebraska.
On the east side of campus, the new $70.8 million, 168,000-square-feet outpatient center and the $35 million, 85,000-square-feet pharmacy buildings are on schedule.
The Lauritzen Outpatient Center will contain outpatient clinics, clinical laboratory space and an outpatient pharmacy. A significant part of this new center will be the Fritch Surgery Center, which will include state-of-the-art, multispecialty outpatient operating rooms, with easy access for patients. Four of the operating rooms will be dedicated to ophthalmic surgery affiliated with the Truhlsen Eye Institute. An orthopaedic surgery academic center and a new center for telehealth will be located on the fourth floor, supported by a gift from longtime UNMC supporters Ruth and Bill Scott. It is scheduled to open in late 2016.
Across the street, the new Lozier Center for Pharmacy Sciences and Education, and UNMC Center for Drug Discovery will give pharmacy students every advantage heading into today’s changing health care landscape, and UNMC’s esteemed research corps every tool available in order to uncover tomorrow’s breakthroughs.
Research activities conducted in the Center for Drug Discovery will be especially focused on infectious diseases, making UNMC a national leader in the field. The new pharmacy building is slated to open in spring 2016.
In Kearney, the $19 million UNMC/ UNK Health Science Education Complex positions the university to better meet health needs in rural Nebraska, where shortages of health care workers are especially acute. It is set to open Aug. 20 with students scheduled to begin classes in the new building the following week.
Educational programs slated for expansion at UNK include physician assistants, physical therapists, clinical laboratory scientists, radiographers and diagnostic medical sonographers, as well as the master’s program for nurse practitioners and bachelor’s in nursing programs.
The four projects, largely funded by private donors, will provide an economic impact that exceeds the $447.8 million in total construction costs. The Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center and the Lauritzen Outpatient Center alone will provide 4,657 new jobs to the metro area, infusing $537 million annually into the economy.
- Find out more about the new cancer researchers.
- Learn more about the Lauritzen Outpatient Center & Fritch Surgery Center.
- Read more about the Lozier Center for Pharmacy Sciences and Education, and UNMC Center for Drug Discovery.
- Learn more about the Health Science Education Complex.