CPPI awarded $30.3 million contract for University of Florida’s Harrell Medical Education Building

The specialized interdisciplinary learning environment will serve as a focal point for integration and program development for all primary care educational activities in the College of Medicine.

By Posted by Tim Gregorski, Senior Editor | September 6, 2012

Charles Perry Partners, Inc. (CPPI) has been awarded a $30.3 million construction management contract for the University of Florida’s Harrell Medical Education Building, a state-of-the-art facility that will impressively serve as the “new front door” for UF’s College of Medicine.

With construction set to begin next spring, the facility will be the medical school’s first freestanding building. Designed by Heery International and slated to open in October 2014, the four-story, 90,000-sf facility will also include the recently-created H. James Free M.D. Center for Primary Care Education and Innovation. The specialized interdisciplinary learning environment will serve as a focal point for integration and program development for all primary care educational activities in the College of Medicine. In addition, the simulation and clinical skills facilities will be available to meet the accreditation requirements for residency training programs and other health science colleges.

Also, the facility will provide the latest in information technology as well as innovative teaching laboratories and support facilities for small-group learning such as the use of simulation/virtual reality and standardized patients for professional development and assessment. Currently, the majority of education of medical students during their first two years occurs in the Communicore building which opened in 1974 as a general health sciences education building. +

Components of the $9-million structural concrete construction phase included a 700-foot-long, below-grade baggage-handling tunnel; metal decks covered in poured-in-place concrete; slab-on-grade for the new terminal; and 10 exterior architectural columns––each 56-feet tall and erected at a 14-degree angle.