Cleveland State received approval on Thursday from the State Building Commission to move forward with the design plans for its new Health and Science Building, as well as the renovation of the Mary T. Barker Humanities Building. This will be the first new building for CSCC in over 40 years.

In order to gain access to the state funds allocated for this capital project, the college had to provide a 10 percent match of $2.5M to qualify for the full amount of $25M.

“We are very excited to share the images and designs of the new Health and Science Building soon to be constructed at Cleveland State,” stated Dr. Bill Seymour, CSCC President. “This building will be state-of-the-art and will instantly become one of the very best facilities for training health care providers in our region.”

Seymour continued, “We are very thankful to those who contributed to our capital campaign as well as our legislators and State officials for helping make this a reality. We anticipate an official groundbreaking in August around the time we start the fall semester.”

The new building will include Nursing, EMT and Medical Assistant Skills and Simulation labs, state-of-the-art biology and microbiology labs, five general classrooms, three conference rooms, student study and collaboration space, faculty offices and 2,400 square feet of multi-function space for classes and events.

Alisha Fox, Vice President of Finance and Operations, said, “This is such an exciting day for Cleveland State and our community. Faculty and staff have worked collaboratively with BarberMcMurry Architects over the past nine months to develop the concepts for this building.

We appreciate the support we have received locally, regionally, and at the state level for this project, which will bring state-of-the art sim labs and life science labs to provide real world educational experiences for our students.”

According to Seymour, a great amount of planning precipitated this decision. The college recently completed its new master plan which included an in-depth analysis of the campus and yielded a set of physical priorities that led to the capital outlay request.

“This is more specifically a result of the work we all put into the Cleveland State 2020 Community First Plan—specifically Goal #2—which not only calls for a new classroom building, but a facilities renovation and renewal program to “provide state-of-the-art learning environments that promote student success.’”