FORT SMITH -- The president and CEO of the Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine announced plans Tuesday to build a 60,000-square-foot health sciences building with a $15 million anonymous gift.
"How can anyone in the world argue that God was not involved in the creation of something like this," Kyle Parker told a crowd of about 100 in the main college building Tuesday.
Planning for the building is underway with groundbreaking set for next spring and its opening in 2020. Parker said it will take an additional $5 million beyond the gift to finish the building.
The building will be the second of what college officials plan eventually to be a campus of four buildings.
The building will house physician-assistant, master-nursing and post-baccalaureate programs, Parker said. It also will become the home of therapeutic doctoral programs that he could not name until they are granted accreditation.
The $15 million gift was one of four announcements made Tuesday. The others were a recently completed research suite in the main school building, a $6 million Phase II housing program that will add 84 units on the college campus, and a 228-acre, planned zone development neighborhood that will incorporate homes, shops, restaurants, banks and day care centers all within walking distance to be developed over the next 10 to 15 years.
"We truly want to help the state of Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma, this region of the country, because we live in the most medically underserved area of the United States," Parker said.
The college has been three years in development, including two years for the construction of the 102,000-square-foot main medical school building that cost $40 million.
Classes at the school are to begin July 31.
The first class will total 150 students. Parker said the school received 3,800 applications from people who met the school's minimum standards. Of that number, 400 were interviewed, and that number was culled to the 150 who were admitted.
The college has a faculty of 76 with the number expected to grow to more than 100 in the second year, Parker said.
He said a quarter of the students are from Arkansas and 62 percent are from states surrounding Arkansas.
Of the students, 46 percent are female and 22 percent of the students are the first generation in their family to go to college, Parker said.
"We're full, and we're excited," he said.
Parker said Tuesday that the 3,000-square-foot research suite was the most comprehensive research facility in this part of the state and includes $1 million in research equipment and supplies.
Scientists were brought in from around the country and abroad to assist in designing the research facilities to their specifications, Parker said.
The research center will be open to the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith and Arkansas Tech University to use through a memorandum of understanding, he said.
Workers at the college are finishing up the first phase of housing, 88 units that will open to students July 10.
Parker also announced the recent completion of a $7.9 million, 13,500-square-foot primary-care clinic in collaboration with Mercy Clinic, which is associated with Mercy Hospital Fort Smith.
The clinic has 28 exam rooms, X-ray and triage, he said.
Parker said the college still has more than $32 million in escrow that it cannot use until after the first class graduates from the college in 2021.
State Desk on 06/28/2017