EVANSVILLE, Ind. — Four companies — three from Indiana and one from Tennessee — have submitted complete proposals for construction of a new home for the Indiana University School of Medicine campus in Evansville and health science programs at the University of Southern Indiana, Ivy Tech Community College Southwest and The University of Evansville.
Responding to the proposal request for a multi-institutional academic health science and research center were Browning Construction Inc. and Duke Realty Corp., both headquartered in Indianapolis; the Office of Finance and Administration at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville, Ind.; and Skanska HealthRealty in Nashville, Tenn. The deadline for submitting the proposals was Jan. 31.
“Indiana University appreciates the time and effort that already has gone into the submissions of qualified responses to our request for proposals for this important project, and we will immediately begin the process of carefully examining each of the proposals,” said Tom Morrison, vice president for facilities and capital planning at Indiana University. “We are very much looking forward to increasing IU’s presence in Evansville and working with our community partners to continue to strengthen the quality of medical education in the region.”
The Trustees of Indiana University are expected to award the contract at their April meeting, with construction expected to begin in 2015. Occupancy is tentatively slated for July 1, 2017.
Morrison said the university sought creative proposals that combine factors such as attractive, developmentally appropriate instruction space and necessary structure for the four programs that will be housed in the new building. Features such as energy efficiency, potential for expansion, compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and a visually pleasing architectural design are all important considerations for the project.
Current plans call for housing all four years of the IU School of Medicine program, which will expand to 80 students with the increase in classroom size provided by the new structure. Ivy Tech Community College Southwest plans to relocate all existing health science programs to the new campus, including the health science and nursing programs currently housed on the main campus on First Avenue.
Another partner in the Medical Education and Research Partnership, the University of Southern Indiana, plans to shift graduate-level health education and research to the new site by 2020, and the University of Evansville plans on launching a new physician assistant program with 60 students and increase programs to include more than 265 health professions students within three years of the opening of the campus.