Lee University announced plans today for immediate construction of a major new building to house its School of Nursing. The 41,000-sq-ft building will lie along Parker Street on the southern edge of the Lee campus, according to Lee president Dr. Paul Conn.

“This will be another ‘signature building’ for our campus,” Conn said. “It will be a beautiful three-story structure which will combine a classic exterior with a teaching facility for nursing which will truly be state-of-the-art.” Conn said site preparation has already begun; construction will begin in early October. Project costs are expected to exceed $7 million, according to Conn.

Lee’s School of Nursing was launched one year ago, and already is operating at maximum capacity for first- and second-year nursing students, according to Dr. Debbie Murray, vice president for academics at Lee. Murray said the proposal adopted by the Tennessee Board of Nursing in 2013 stipulated that a clinical teaching facility will be in place by fall of 2016, when a full slate of clinical classes will begin. The first nursing graduates are scheduled to complete their degrees in late 2017.

The new building will face east along Parker Street as well as west toward the downtown Cleveland area, Conn said. “This is a part of the overall ‘South Campus’ project which will tie the School of Nursing together with Pangle Hall and the Communication Arts Building, both of which were completed last year. This is an ambitious project, and when it is all completed a year from now, it will connect downtown Cleveland with the heart of the Lee campus in a gorgeous and intelligent way.”

The structure will provide room for growth of the new nursing program, according to Murray. “We are building not just for today, but for the future,” she stated. “We expect our School of Nursing to be one of the most significant ones in this region, and we are building the building to match our dreams and our ambition for this program.” The structure will include high-tech “simulation labs” which will make it possible for nursing students to study patient care with highly advanced “robot patients” in a variety of teaching areas which will offer clinical experience for students. “This is the direction of the future in nursing education,” she stated. “We decided to go ahead and building the facility now that will be the standard for all nursing schools in years to come.”

The building will also include a 170-seat lecture hall, computerized learning centers for specialties such as pediatrics, ob/gyn, and community health, and 20 faculty offices. Classrooms and seminar rooms of various sizes are also part of the plan.

Conn stated that the general contractors for the facility will be Tri-Con, Inc., of Cleveland, with architectural services provided by Rardin and Carroll Architects, of Chattanooga.