Marc Kahn, dean of the UNLV School of Medicine, is shown at a groundbreaking ceremony for the school’s new building at the Shadow Lane campus, Thursday, Oct. 28, 2020.
Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020 | 12:52 p.m.
Development on the new UNLV Medical School building officially began this morning, months ahead of schedule and still without originally earmarked monies from the state pulled due to budget cuts driven by the coronavirus pandemic.
In an interview before the groundbreaking today, Maureen Schafer, the CEO of Nevada Health and Bioscience Corporation, said the developers are still in conversation with the governor’s office and the Legislature about making up the funding stream.
“The way we look at this is, we as a development corporation made a commitment to the community, so we’re breaking ground, we’re going to move forward, because the care can’t stop,” Schafer said.
Gov. Steve Sisolak cut a $25 million pledge toward the building from the state budget this summer, as the business shutdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic ravaged the state’s coffers and caused a special session of the legislature to be called to cut over $1 billion.
Schafer said developers are also looking at other third-party funding sources, such as federal grants.
“It is irresponsible to just continue to build buildings in Southern Nevada with philanthropic dollars,” Schafer said. “It’s unsustainable, No. 1, and No. 2, this community has too many need. Philanthropists have, for so long, been filling those needs.”
The building’s original price estimate was $175 million to $200 million, though Schafer said that, now that the development corporation has done design reconfiguration, it should come in “significantly less” than $150 million.
The 135,000-square-foot building will be built nine acres at 625 Shadow Lane, and has a contracted completion date of early 2025.
In a July interview, Warren Hardy, a former state senator and lobbyist for the project, said the developers have received assurances that the state intends to come up with the money, which is required to be spent last in the project.
“Internally, we received enough assurances from the governor and the Legislature that the full intention is for the state to replace that $25 million, and we’ve gone ahead and continued construction,” Hardy said.
Marc Kahn, the dean of the Medical School who took over the position in April 2020, said the building will have an impact on both the area’s health care capabilities as well as the local economy.
“Having a new medical education building is going to allow us to train more physicians for the future health care needs for Nevada,” Kahn said. “As importantly, we need to diversify the economy in Southern Nevada, and COVID has shown us that.”
The temporary shutdown of casinos, the lifeblood of Nevada’s economy, had drastic impacts on the amount of tax dollars flowing into state coffers this year. Establishing the new building, Kahn said, hopefully will draw biotechnology and pharmaceutical businesses to the area.
“The building hopefully will help develop the area,” Kahn said. “We’re already talking with neighborhood schools to see if we can work with the schools to see if we can develop magnet programs.”
Three previous attempts to begin construction on the building, developed by the Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor’s Office and UNLV administrators, fell through amid tensions between the UNLV donor community and NSHE.
The donor community withdrew millions of dollars of money for the project in 2018 after the resignation of then-UNLV President Len Jessup amid pressure from regents and then-Chancellor Thom Reilly.
