Only a few years since Gonzaga University and the University of Washington School of Medicine got hitched, they've found a place they'll soon call home.
Earlier this week, the UW-GU Regional Health Partnership announced that McKinstry, a design and construction company, will finance and construct a new $60 million, 80,000-square-foot building at 840 E. Spokane Falls Blvd. The building will serve as a new center for medical education.
"With help from McKinstry, the UW School of Medicine's partnership with Gonzaga is poised for a crucial leap forward, and we couldn't be more excited about what this means for medical education and care across our state," says UW President Ana Mari Cauce.
Construction is expected to be completed by August 2022. Students in the first 18 months of the UW School of Medicine program, along with the MEDEX Northwest physician assistant education program, will relocate to the new building from their current home on the Gonzaga campus. Gonzaga's Department of Human Physiology and the School of Nursing & Human Physiology will also use the new building.
It will be located next to Gonzaga's Trent Avenue parking facility and McKinstry Spokane Inland Empire Railroad building (SIERR), which will become part of what the health partnership is calling a "health care innovation cluster." McKinstry, meanwhile, will move across the University District Gateway Bridge to a spot near the Catalyst building.
Thayne McCulloh, Gonzaga president praised a "creative approach to funding facilities like this," using a private middleman like McKinstry.
"We have reaffirmed our long-term commitment to broadening the array of health-related education and research endeavors, and to preparing the next generation of health care professionals here in Spokane and the Inland Northwest," he says.
