Trustees approve location of new Medical Education Building

In January, William L. Roper, dean of the School of Medicine, vice chancellor for medical affairs and chief executive officer of the UNC Health Care System, told University trustees that UNC Hospitals needed to expand to meet the health-care needs of the state’s growing population.

For several years, the demand for services has exceeded the availability of existing beds and other necessary hospital space.

Roper also reviewed a master facility plan for the health-care system and medical school that would seek to keep pace with these burgeoning capital needs over the next decade. The University Board of Trustees approved the master plan concept of creating a new bed tower and patient access center on campus.

On March 26, the trustees took a major step toward implementing the master plan when they voted to approve the location of a new 297,000-square-foot Medical Education Building that will provide teaching and office space to accommodate enrollment growth for the School of Medicine.

The proposed site for the Medical Education Building would include where Berryhill Hall now stands in combination with the site north of Medical Drive on the southwest corner of the Bell Tower Development.

University planners and administrators considered several options for the best use of space for the new building, including renovating Berryhill with an addition or redeveloping the Berryhill site in combination with one nearby.

The trustees also approved the site for a 50,000-square-foot addition to the Mary Ellen Jones Building, which opened in 1978 as a research building for the School of Medicine. Based on preliminary designs not yet approved by the trustees, the addition would be to the west of the existing building and would feature a new outdoor plaza above the current loading area that would connect the buildings.

The trustees’ Buildings and Grounds Committee also reviewed a preliminary design for a new 342,000 square-foot Imaging Research Building that would expand imaging and research space for the schools of Medicine and Pharmacy. The building, to be located at the corner of West Drive and Mason Farm Road directly south of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, will house the Biomedical Imaging Research Center and the Center for Nanomedicine plus offices, labs and support space.

Carolina North
In other matters, Jack Evans, executive director of Carolina North, updated trustees on ongoing progress between the University and the town in moving Carolina North, the University’s planned mixed-use academic and research campus, forward.

Evans said the UNC Board of Governors approved a resolution in support of Carolina North at its March 7 meeting.

The resolution states that Carolina North would promote the economic transformation of North Carolina and would make a “significant contribution to the recommendations of the UNC Tomorrow report, especially by making North Carolina more competitive in the global economy, transforming the economy of the community and the state, providing a home for research to improve health and the environment, and engaging in civic outreach.”

The resolution said, “There is now an urgent need to develop Carolina North to help the state attract the talent and resources that drive innovation.”

Evans also provided updates on two foundational studies.

The first is the transit study that had been scheduled for completion in late February. The second is the fiscal impact study, which would attempt to measure the myriad ways the development of Carolina North would increase tax revenues for the town of Chapel Hill, and at the same time, require an expansion of town services.

Evans said he hoped to have a written report of the fiscal impact analysis by the end of May.