ASU’s Student Health Services Building is getting a makeover to the tune of $10 million.
The new facility is set to open in two parts — the first in fall 2011 and the second in January 2012 — and will be larger, modernized, more efficient in handling patients and LEED certified, said Allan Markus, director of ASU Health Services.
The new building should fix students’ main complaints about the current Health Services Building, including long waiting times and not enough private space, said junior Rimpi Saini, chair of the Health and Counseling Student Action Committee.
“The new building should accommodate more students, give them more privacy and shorten wait time,” Saini said.
The new building will add almost 5,000 square feet of space, giving each patient more private space, as well as increase work efficiency. Also, according to projections, the building will have at least a silver LEED rating, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, Markus said.
LEED is a green building certification system that gives buildings a rating of certified, silver, gold or platinum. There are already 23 buildings on the Tempe campus that have received a LEED rating of silver or higher.
The building will incorporate many energy saving techniques. For example, the bricks and cement of the old building will be used to create the pathways around the new building. The plants on the property will also be low-water plants, that is, they will need less water to survive.
“Everything we do at ASU … should have sustainability as a part of it,” Markus said.
The current Health Services Building, on the corner of University Drive and Palm Walk, was built in 1953 and then an addition was made in 1968. The building was only made to accommodate the 16,000 students attending at the time. Today, with more than 50,000 students on the Tempe campus alone, wait times were starting to become a problem, Markus said.
With the new building, they will likely see 40 to 50 more patients a day, Markus said.
“The real problem is the building … it was never a staffing issue,” Markus said.
The renovations will be done in two parts, he said. First, the 1953 section of the building will be torn down and a new building will be built in its place. That building will be completed in fall 2011. Once finished, renovations will begin on the 1968 section and should end January 2012.
The renovations are being done in two parts so Health Services can still see patients during construction. They will probably be able to serve the same number of people they are serving now during construction, Markus said.
In addition to the building, an educational health resource center is being constructed off the lobby, he said. This facility will deal primarily with women’s health information, but it will also be available to men.
Students have been involved with the new Health Services building since its inception, and student input was taken throughout the project, according to nursing and German senior Jelena Peric. Peric, former chair of the Health and Counseling Student Action Committee, is involved with the project.
“Since student input was extremely important throughout the entire process, many aspects of the project strongly reflect student input,” Peric said.
The health fees all students pay are primarily funding the new Health Services building and the educational health resource center, but user fees from people who use the facility are also defraying the cost.
“I think students will be amazed at the quality of the building, the modernization and the efficiency,” Markus said.
Reach the reporter at connor.radnovich@asu.edu
