The University at Buffalo has a plan in place to keep its Main Street campus vibrant after its medical school moves out.
UB's medical school will move to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus in two years, bringing with it an estimated 1,300 faculty, staff and students. Knowing the gap this will create, as well as the impact on the immediate neighborhoods served by the South Campus, UB is moving ahead with plans to redevelop its Main Street site.
Dr. Satish Tripathi, the university's president, explained some of those changes to members of the Western New York Regional Economic Development Council during their meeting on Monday.
Phase one will call for renovation of Townsend and Parker Halls to house administrative offices and the School of Social Work, respectively. Phase two will see construction of a new building on campus to house the Graduate School of Education and a new Professional Education Center.
"It's an education center where we'll have professional courses, where we'll have a relationship between the community and the school coming together, where we'll have different kinds of activities going on and be much closer to the community as well," Dr. Tripathi said.
The cost of the projects, combined, is estimated at $97 million. The renovations are expected to bring an estimated 1,500 faculty, staff and students to the South Campus.
