USA approves new site
Mobile Register, March 4, 2005 Section: B Page: 7
Author: Jeff Amy

The new home for nursing and allied health schools at the University of South Alabama will overlook a marquee corner - University Boulevard and USA North Drive.

It's the third site proposed to house the colleges, now located on USA's Spring Hill Avenue Campus. Leaders of the 13,500-student university say that location is hurting students who are isolated from the life of the broader campus, and who have to take classes in sometimes awkwardly converted spaces in the former Providence Hospital.

USA President Gordon Moulton showed a plan at Thursday's trustee meeting for an L-shaped building. One wing would house the College of Nursing, while the other would house the College of Allied Health.

Early estimates put the size of the building at 125,000 to 130,000 square feet. That would rival the size of the University Library, the campus' third-largest building, with 137,000 square feet.

Costs are estimated at $25 million or more, driven high because of the need for expensive lab and clinic space.

After the move was first broached in 2002, officials targeted the physicians office building on the main campus. Because most doctors offices have been moved to the university's three hospitals, the building is now largely empty. But renovation costs were determined to be too high, and USA decided to build anew.

Then, USA looked at a site between Alpha Hall and the visual arts complex. That spot fit in with ideas expressed in USA's 2004 master plan. A building there would face out over an area behind the Whiddon Administration Building. That area is meant to become a formal, wooded ellipse.

But the place is too small to hold a building large enough for nursing and allied health, said Brad Christensen, the university architect. Plus, there are many utility lines underneath that site that would be expensive to move. Finally, allied health students treat some patients in clinics, and there would have been little parking for patients near that spot.

That led planners to the University Boulevard corner. There's plenty of parking, including a plan for two new lots, and no utilities underneath.

That decision displaces a conference center envisioned for the corner. Such a center would allow USA to move that function from its Brookley campus to the main campus. Christensen said the conference center could be attached to a hotel the university hopes will be built across the street, or built on another site in USA's research park, and connected to the hotel by a walkway.

This article reproduced with special permission from the Mobile Register.