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Focus on the Future

A Three Phase Building Program Takes Shape

Physical plant and facilities constraints are one of the most difficult challenges faced by the college. The space crunch is becoming a critical issue in many sectors of the college’s academic, research and clinical programs.

Three projects, each designed to enhance strategic programmatic development, are now in various phases of planning, design and budgeting. Funding to support the expansion of the college’s physical plant complex will come from a variety of public and private resources.

future plans
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Infectious Disease Research Facility

The first building project is an $8 million research facility that is presently configured to be sited adjacent to the teaching hospital complex. This building is now being funded exclusively from state and university funds.

As presently conceived, this building will include BSL-2 research facilities on the second floor, and include additional clinical and instructional space on the first floor. Groundbreaking for this project could come as early as Fall 2008.

Instructional Building

The second major building project will involve the addition of a $12 million instructional facility that will help alleviate two major problems:

  • A lack of instructional space
    Increasing the college’s instructional space will enable it to increase the number of students in each class from 90 to up to 130 students in the years ahead.
     
    The nation’s 28 colleges of veterinary medicine produce only about 2600 graduates per year, and experts predict a shortage of up to 15,000 veterinarians by 2025. Clearly, the colleges must increase their capacity to train and produce additional numbers of veterinarians.
     
  • Inadequate faculty office space
    Facility expansion will also help resolve a problematic office situation that underserves our faculty, is causing recruitment and retention problems and could become an AVMA accreditation issue. This new building will include space for approximately 40 new faculty offices and enable the college to upgrade and renovate the existing offices.

Final architectural planning is underway and the university is requesting funding for the Instructional Building from the state in the university’s capital outlay plan for the 2008-2010 biennium. The college expects to begin construction in 2010. Partial funding will also come from capitation funds (“rent” paid by the state of Maryland for Virginia to educate Maryland students) and private funding raised through development.

Translational Medicine Building

The final building envisioned as part of the college’s major capital development initiative is a $70 million translational medicine building that will provide a significant expansion of the teaching hospital and introduce new research space that will support the development of the college’s translational medicine programs.

The expansion of VTH space will help alleviate general space shortages and provide room to train an enlarged senior class. Tuition revenues generated through increased class sizes are expected to support the hiring of additional faculty and staff and contribute to meeting the overall cost of the facility.

This complex will include a 20,000 square foot addition to the VTH on the first floor, and include basic and clinical research laboratories on the second and third floors.

The Translational Medicine building is on the university’s capital outlay plan for the 2010 - 2012 biennium. The $70 million cost of the complex will include $35 million in state funding and $35 million raised by development.

Questions about our Capital Development Initiative?

To learn more about the planned expansion of the college’s physical plant complex and how you can support this exciting initiative, please contact:

Frank Pearsall, DVM, Director of Development
pearsall@vt.edu
540-231-4259

Amanda M. Dymacek, Assistant Director of Development
halla@vt.edu
540-231-5825