The University of South Alabama's (USA) new medical school facilities will bring a highly visible transformation to the school's campus, judging from a first look at the site where the new buildings will be constructed later this year.
Following a meeting of the USA Board of Trustees meeting earlier in March, a bus ferried some board members and top administrators to a corner of campus where yellow tape staked out the perimeter of the new construction to help onlookers visualize the scope of the project.
Buck Kelley, who manages facilities and construction for USA, told the group that the university's plans were big, and involve the demolition of two of the campus' oldest buildings.
Renovations Were Ditched in Favor of New Construction
Back in January 2022, school leaders, including John V. Marymont, vice president of medical affairs and dean of USA's College of Medicine, and Owen Bailey, CEO, and senior associate vice president for medical affairs at USA Health, envisioned a $120 million project that would renovate and expand the existing medical school facility.
Since then, however, those plans have changed.
Marymont and USA President Jo Bonner told AL.com one concern was that renovations would be too disruptive for ongoing medical research. Another was that new construction would give more bang for the buck than trying to renovate a building that was not built to serve modern concepts of how a medical school should function.
"It began to make all the sense in the world," explained Bonner. "It will be a little bit more expensive to [build], but it's going to be done right."
Now, the plan is that this summer, the building known as Alpha Hall East will be torn down. That work will be visible from University Boulevard as Alpha East parallels the road near the northwestern corner of the main campus. It also is southeast of the much newer and larger Health Sciences Building that houses USA's College of Nursing.
Toward the end of 2023, Alpha Hall South, another low rectangular building that sits perpendicular to Alpha East, will be demolished, according to AL.com.
Following that, the new home of the Frederick J. Whiddon College of Medicine will begin to rise from the ground. Designed to be an L-shaped building with a four-story education wing and a five-story research wing, the new Whiddon structure, set to open in 2026, will sit a bit closer to University Boulevard, lining up with the Health Sciences Building.
Eventually the Medical Sciences Building that serves as the current home of the Whiddon College of Medicine will be torn down as well, leaving some prime real estate on campus for unspecified future construction.
Marymont noted that years of work had gone into detailing the program's needs and turning them into the exact specifications of a new building so that the project could be approved.
Planning the medical school facilities began under former USA President Tony Waldrop, Bonner's predecessor.
"This programming has gone on for three years," Marymont said. "You don't get the money and then start the process. I knew we needed a new school when I came here six and a half years ago."
Plus, moving the college of medicine closer to the Health Sciences Building and the College of Nursing will create "a whole medical district," he explained.
USA Has Secured Much of Project's Needed Funds
AL.com reported that as the vision has grown for a reconstituted USA medical campus, so has the price tag. Marymont told the statewide news service that he expects the construction project will push close to $200 million. The good news, though, is that a substantial portion of that cost has already been secured.
"Gov. [Kay] Ivey, and her $50 million commitment, the USA Foundation, [through its director], Maxey Roberts, and John McMillan, [the foundation's president, committed] $30 million, and then Sen. Richard Shelby came in with $60 million from the federal government," Marymont told AL.com. "That really changed the game from trying to renovate an out-of-date, end-of-life building into something very special for the state of Alabama."
With $140 million currently in hand, the university is developing a fundraising campaign to raise the rest of the funds needed, he added.
The expanded facilities will allow USA to increase the size of its graduating medical school classes from 80 to 100 students, Marymont explained. He said he does not want that to happen too fast, but admitted the growth will help the college's mission to serve the state.
"This is really for the state of Alabama," added Marymont. "We [place] our graduates throughout the state."
Among medical schools, USA is in the 85th percentile in terms of how many of its new doctors go on to work in the same state where they were educated. In addition, it is over the 90th percentile in terms of how many of its graduates go into rural areas, and the 100th percentile for graduates working in underserved areas, he said.
"We meet our mission," he said. "This is what it is really about."
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