The University of New Mexico Health Sciences will host a groundbreaking ceremony at 9 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 8, for the new College of Nursing and Public Health Excellence Building (CON-PHE), which will enable the capacity to graduate more students.
The 93,740-gross-square-foot building will be located on Tucker Avenue, just west of the Domenici Center for Health Sciences Education, on what is currently the M-Family Practice parking lot. The three-story building will include classrooms, offices, community hubs and a research wet lab.
CON-PHE was designed with a goal in mind – to alleviate the pressure on the state’s health care workforce deficit.
“We are working diligently to address the shortage of bachelor of science in nursing-prepared RNs and advanced practice nurses who are vital to the care of our communities,” said Christine E. Kasper, PhD, RN, dean of the UNM College of Nursing.
This building will help increase enrollment and support for our students as well as provide research space and the latest technology to continue our commitment to solving the most critical health care needs
“This building will help increase enrollment and support for our students, as well as provide research space and the latest technology to continue our commitment to solving the most critical health care needs.”
The College of Nursing has grown exponentially in the last five years and currently occupies space in seven buildings on the UNM campus. The new building will consolidate most of that space.
As for the College of Population Health, the 2016 addition to the UNM Health Sciences that trains students to improve health outcomes is also growing quickly, and doesn’t have a central office space. Instead, the College is scattered throughout the Health Sciences campus and UNM’s Main Campus.
The new building is of tremendous importance for the much-needed growth of the College of Population Health. It will allow for more space for students, faculty and staff, which is key to recruitment and retention of talented population and public health practitioners
“The new building is of tremendous importance for the much-needed growth of the College of Population Health,” said Dean Tracie Collins, MD, MPH, MHCDS. “It will allow for more space for students, faculty and staff, which is key to recruitment and retention of talented population and public health practitioners.”
After the completion of the CON-PHE project, the College of Population Health will occupy approximately half of the first floor, with the College of Nursing taking up the rest of the building.
“We are fortunate to have this planned space,” Collins said. “It brings so much value to New Mexico as we grow public health.”
During the groundbreaking, UNM President Garnett S. Stokes will be joined by deans Kasper and Collins, along with members of the UNM Board of Regents and senior HSC leadership, including Douglas Ziedonis, MD, MPH, executive vice president for Health Sciences and CEO of UNM Health, Richard Larson, MD, PhD, vice president for Research (Health Sciences), Amy Levi, PhD, CNM, WHNP, vice president for Academic Affairs, and James Holloway, PhD, provost and EVP for Academic Affairs.
Also on hand will be Ryan Reynolds, group manager for capital projects at UNM Health Sciences. The CON-PHE was designed to promote “science on display” and to be a cohesive addition to North Campus, Reynolds said.
“We strategically placed the research lab corridor area, which will be on the second floor, along the corner of the building, where there will be a lot of windows, so when people are walking by or driving by, they’ll actually be able to see some of the people in there conducting lab experiments,” he said. “When designing, we took some elements of Domenici (Center) to help tie it in.”
According to UNM Parking and Transportation Services, all the parking spaces in the M-Family Practice Lot will eventually be either temporarily impacted or permanently displaced by the construction project. The loss of proximity parking has been a cause for concern among many students, staff and faculty.
“We have displaced a lot of parking, but we’ve also added a lot of parking,” Reynolds said. “It’s not proximity parking – people have to shuttle in – but hopefully people keep in mind that this is a good thing for New Mexico. We’re trying to mitigate some of the shortage we have of health care workers in the state.”
The project’s $43.2 million price tag includes $30 million funded by the general obligation bonds passed by the New Mexico Legislature in 2020, which was signed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and approved by voters in November 2020. An additional $2.5 million was passed in the most recent legislative session. The remainder of the $43.3 million budget comes from the HSC EVP office, the College of Population Health and the College of Nursing.
Construction is slated for completion in 2024.
