UAMS trustee panel OKs six-project plan

Mark Kenneday, vice chancellor for campus operations at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, presents facility plans before the UA board of trustees in Little Rock on Thursday.

Mark Kenneday, vice chancellor for campus operations at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, presents facility plans before the UA board of trustees in Little Rock on Thursday.

Friday, February 1, 2013

— Leaders of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences unveiled a campus master plan Thursday that detailed about 25 years of proposed projects, including a dental school, the expansion of several existing buildings and the overhaul of an old hospital building.

The plan also calls for the exploration of a new Interstate 630 interchange.

After reviewing the plan, a committee of the University of Arkansas board of trustees approved one of its early phases by hiring architects to plan the first six projects.

Those projects include a $40.5 million expansion and renovation of the medical school’s outpatient treatment center and a $27 million first phase of a “business village”to house administrative programs.

“We thought it would be appropriate to show how these projects support our long-term vision,” Dr. Dan Rahn, chancellor of UAMS, said as he presented the master plan.

Design professionals selected Thursday will collaborate to discuss the first-phase projects and finalize cost estimates, presenting them to trustees for final approval before construction begins, Rahn said.

Additional projects included in the master plan would be completed only after the medical school ensures there is sufficient demand for their use and determines how to fund them, he said.

Vice Chancellor for Campus Operations Mark Kenneday said campus leaders want to improve entrances and make UAMS easier to navigate for patients.

Because the 96-acre campus is densely built surrounding the hospital, the master plan calls for moving administrative services, such as information technology, to new buildings on the edge of the property, he said.

“We are looking at an exciting opportunity to see how our facilities support our mission,” Kenneday said.

UAMS opened a new 10-story, $200 million hospital at the center of its campus in 2009. The former hospital building, connected by a corridor, houses some administrative offices.

Under an agreement with the fire marshal, UAMS must demolish or significantly improve the old hospital by 2021, Rahn said.

UAMS is now improving the first three floors of the old building with sprinklers to comply with the agreement, he said, and it plans to demolish the top four floors. In the long term, those floors could be rebuilt to house other programs, or the building could be removed entirely, leaders said.

The long-range plan calls for a “business village,” that would consolidate offices now in the campus’s old hospital building and in off-campus sites into a cluster of buildings set near ponds designed to collect and reuse rainwater.

Because the campus core is so dense and difficult for construction crews to work in, it would cost about $60 less per square foot to build on the edge of the site, Kenneday said. UAMS would reserve critical space near the newly constructed main hospital building for academic and patient uses, he said.

The board’s building and grounds committee approved the start of work on the business village Thursday by approving Kirchner Architects and WER Architects to design the first two 60,000-squarefoot buildings south of Seventh Street near its intersection with Hooper Street with an estimated combined cost of$27 million.

The committee also selected Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects to design an estimated $40.5 million three-part expansion and renovation of the outpatient center. That project would include a new arrival area to provide centralized access to the Jones Eye Institute, the Pat and Willard Walker Tower and laboratory, pharmacy and optical services.

While parts of that project are under construction, clinical space would be temporarily relocated to one or two floors of the Winthrop Rockefeller Cancer Institute, which are currently unfinished.

The committee selected Cromwell Architects to design the completion of those floors,which would be finished at an estimated cost of $5 million.

The committee also approved architects to design an $8 million renovation of the molecular pathology laboratory and plans to demolish UAMS owned rental houses between Pine and Cedar streets next to the campus, which would create room for about 700 parking spaces, Kenneday said.

To achieve longer-term portions of the master plan, UAMS may need to negotiate plans to purchase property occupied by a National Guard armory and a portion of the State Hospital, he said.

The 6.95 acres to the south of the state-operated psychiatric hospital would be the site of a dental school if UAMS fulfills the master plan. UAMS hopes to have a dental residency program by 2014.

The master plan also calls for a new Center for Primary Care beside I-630, the expansion of the hospital’s south tower, additional student housing, adding two floors to the I. Dodd Wilson Education Building and expanding the east parking deck.

Hospital leaders have had discussions with the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department about adding an I-630 interchange off Hooper Street to increase campus access, Kenneday said.

Trustees were supportive of the master plan, especially plans to upgrade old buildings near the new hospital.

“The new hospital looks so fabulous, but it’s really made the contrast very evident,” trustee Jane Rogers said.

The full board of trustees is set to vote on final approval of the committee’s decisions today.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/01/2013