$60 million Community Health Building opens at University of Memphis

When the semester gets back in swing next week, University of Memphis health science students will start classes in one of the largest facilities for community health-related education and research in the Mid-South. Located at the Park Avenue campus, the 200,000-square foot University of Memphis Community Health Building houses the Loewenberg School of Nursing, School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Memphis Speech and Hearing Center and a future Autism center. 

 

The $60 million facility will support over a thousand students and 70 faculty in the nursing school and a hundred students and 25 faculty in the communication sciences and disorders center. 

 

"The academic programs (at the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders) are intrinsically connected to the Memphis Speech and Hearing Center (MSHC), which is the clinical education arm of the School," said Linda Jarmulowicz, Interim Dean of the University of Memphis School of Communication Sciences and Disorders. "The MSHC has been serving the Memphis community since 1947. Both the School and MSHC had outgrown their space at 807 Jefferson. The new state-of-the art clinical facility will enable us to expand while we continue to provide high quality care to our clients and educational experiences for our students."

 

The new MSHC has space for pediatric and adult group therapy and single therapy or diagnostic rooms as well as several new audiology testing suites. The Community Health Building will also house nursing simulation suites, nursing skills labs and health assessment labs. An anechoic chamber, the only one of its kind in West Tennessee, will further valuable research on hearing devices and hearing problems. 

 

Other updates are on the way for the Park Avenue campus including a new parking lot adding 437 spaces in addition to the 166 spaces provided in the Community Health Building project. The $40 million athletics capital campaign is coming to a close, and the 58,000-square foot men's basketball training center and 76,000-square foot football training facility are expected to break ground next month.