File photo / Jim Neuger
James Herbert, president of the University of New England, in the Makerspace lab on the school's Biddeford campus, photographed in November 2018 during an interview and tour with Mainebiz.
Updated: October 13, 2020
UNE to build $70M medical school in Portland
Rendering / Courtesy University of New England
The University of New England will move its College of Osteopathic Medicine from Biddeford to Portland, where the school will build a new facility, shown here in a rendering, with help from a $30 million Harold Alfond Foundation grant. UNE estimates the project cost at around $70 million.
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The University of New England said Tuesday that it will use a $30 million gift from the Harold Alfond Foundation toward construction of a $70 million building in Portland to house its College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Currently based in Biddeford, the college would relocate to a new 110,000-square-foot facility on UNE's Portland campus. UNE said the project will require it to raise additional funds through public and private sources.
It aims to break ground on the new facility in spring 2022 and have it completed by fall 2023.
A spokeswoman told Mainebiz the building project will be the first school's since the Danielle N. Ripich Commons in Biddeford that was dedicated in 2018 and named for UNE's former president, who retired in 2017. She was honored as a Mainebiz Woman to Watch in 2011 and Mainebiz Nonprofit Business Leader of the Year in 2016.
James Herbert, who succeeded Ripich as UNE's president in July 2017, said the relocation of the medical school brings numerous advantages.
“With a truly integrated health care campus, like none other in our region, our health professions students will capitalize on opportunities for cross-professional learning, enhance their team-based competencies, and will benefit from amazing new learning spaces that will complement UNE’s existing assets,” he said in a Tuesday news release. “UNE will be able to realize its full potential as a national leader in interprofessional education."
He also noted that UNE's Biddeford campus will benefit from the relocation since it will be able to expand its offering of undergraduate and graduate programs linked to workforce needs.
"This grant also enables us to expand our positive influence on Maine's economy and help shepherd in a new wave of economic prosperity for our state," he added.
The $30 million from the Harold Alfond Foundation is part of a $500 million investment in Maine educational institutions and organizations unveiled last week to help grow the state's workforce and economy and support quality health care.
Telehealth, digital health tech focus
The new building will include space to significantly increase class size; a digital teaching center to focus on telehealth and digital health technologies; an interprofessional patient simulation center that can accommodate large student teams and design features that incorporate best practice sin medical education and team-based learning.
Currently, UNE's College of Osteopathic Medicine is Maine's only medical school, and among few graduate health profession programs located on the school's Biddeford campus.
The Portland campus is home to programs focused on dentistry, pharmacy, physician assistant education, nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, social work, dental hygiene and nurse anesthesia.
By unifying its health professions programs on one campus, UNE said it hopes to fully integrate those programs and enhance its already robust adoption of interprofessional education practices, involving multidisciplinary teams working together on patient-centered care.
Herbert addressed that approach in an "On the Record" interview with Mainebiz published last year in which he said that expanding team-based health education was a priority.
"UNE is known already for its signature interprofessional education and interprofessional practice, which basically means team-based training and care," he said at that time. "We now want to take that to the next level."
Still at early stage
While the address of the new College of Osteopathic Medicine building in Portland has not yet been determined, a spokesperson told Mainebiz it will be located on university-owned land behind Innovation Hall, which is located at 772 Stevens Ave.
She also said that UNE had enlisted a firm to make a conceptual rendering, and that neither an architectural firm nor a general contractor had yet been selected for the project.
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