education
Brown OKs new $45M medical school HQ
BROWN’S PROPOSED renovation of 222 Richmond St. to turn it into a home for its medical school is shown in this rendering, which looks south on Richmond Street. The renovated building is scheduled to open in August 2011.
ELLENZWEIG ASSOCIATES, VIA BROWN UNIVERSITY
By Ted Nesi
PBN Web Editor
(Corrected, Oct. 21)
PROVIDENCE – Brown University’s leaders on Saturday signed off on detailed plans for the new Warren Alpert Medical School building the school plans to build next year in the Jewelry District.
The plans call for the $45 million project to renovate 222 Richmond St. to begin next spring, if city officials give their approval, according to the plan approved by a committee of the Corporation of Brown University, the school’s governing body. The building is scheduled to open in August 2011.
The 135,000-gross-square-foot building will include a central atrium with entrances on both Richmond and Eddy streets, lecture halls, an anatomy lab, and case study and seminar rooms, Brown said. It was designed by Ellenzweig Associates Inc., a Cambridge-based firm.
Dr. Edward J. Wing, dean of medicine and biological sciences at Brown, described the plan as “the beginning of a new era in medical education” at the university. “I am elated by the vote of the corporation,” he said in a statement. “This milestone will enable Alpert Medical School to continue its upward trajectory toward greater excellence.”
Brown purchased 222 Richmond St., not far from the city’s hospital district, in October 2006. In a news release, the university said the new facility will let the medical school implement an academy system that will organize medical students into “smaller subgroups for class teaching and mentoring.”
The project will create almost 350 temporary construction jobs, according to an independent analysis Brown commissioned from Appleseed Inc., a New York-based consulting firm. It will also support an additional 200 jobs and add $26.2 million to the state’s economic output, according to Appleseed.
Frances Halsband, a planning architect, also briefed Brown’s leadership on the results of a planning study she conducted of the Jewelry District to aid the university in integrating itself into the neighborhood. The school is looking at the possibility of wider sidewalks for Richmond Street, better landscaping, improved signage and additional retail in the area.
During its weekend meeting, the corporation also accepted seven gifts to the university of $1 million or more.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly used a masculine pronoun in reference to Frances Halsband, who is a woman.
Additional information is available at brown.edu.
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