Board of Trustees approve final $350,000 for CMED East planning, look to approve construction by July
The Central Michigan University Board of Trustees approved the final $350,000 for the planning and design of Phase One of the College of Medicine’s Saginaw campus on Friday.
With the additional funds, the project's to-date price of planning and design is $2.62 million with the total costs of the CMED East facility estimated at $46.5 million.
University President George Ross said he was happy to get the final step of planning approved.
“I didn’t say this to the board, but we have basically seated the first CMED class" he said. "May 15 was the deadline for students to decide, and we have seated our 64 students of that first class. They are going to be in Saginaw in 2015, so it feels good to get this done to make sure the facility is ready for them in 2015.”
Though no formal announcement was made, Ross hopes to approve the start of construction by July’s board meeting.
“We are moving forward. We have great partners in Saginaw with Covenant Healthcare and St. Mary’s Hospital," he said. "This is the final piece of the planning money, and we do plan to bring to this board a resolution for the approval of construction at the July meeting. We anticipate a big process this fall and maybe a shovel in the dirt by the end of the year."
The 48,000-square-foot facility will be constructed on the grounds of Covenant Healthcare in Saginaw and will provide clinical completion for years three and four of the CMED curriculum. The facility will come at a cost of $25-million to the university.
CMED East will also use land and facilities from St. Mary’s Hospital in Saginaw.
With the planning for phase one nearly complete, Ross took some time to talk about the inaugural CMED class.
“We had almost 2,800 applications and the classes test scores, and GPAs are way above the averages across the country," he said. "Between 80 and 90-percent of our students in our first class are Michigan students, and we are excited about this first class. They are basically Michigan residents, and that’s the model we wanted to educate Michigan doctors.”
