Miami Hurricane, September 10, 2015

              F ences enclose work
zones full of dirt and
concrete. A crane is
towering over Ponce de
Leon Boulevard. A bridge stretches far-ther
across Lake Osceola each day. The
University of Miami’s physical makeup
is being reshaped and augmented in all
corners of its 239-acre campus in Coral
Gables.
While none of these changes
alone will impact student life as pro-foundly
as the Donna E. Shalala Stu-dent
Center when it opened in the
fall of 2013, the brand new buildings
and bridges combined with count-less
renovations are part of one of
the most significant waves of phys-ical
change in the university’s 90-
year history.
The largest and most ex-pensive
of the construction
projects is The Lennar Founda-tion
Medical Center, home of
UHealth at Coral Gables, on
the southern part of the cam-pus.
The 206,000-square-foot
ambulatory care and
outpatient center had its
ceremonial groundbreak-ing
in September, 2015 and
has risen quickly. Its con-crete
and steel skeleton
already casts a large figure between the Flipse Building
and Dickinson Drive.
“It’s moving along at a very nice clip,” said Janet
Gavarrete, associate vice president of campus planning
and development. She said completion is scheduled for
November 2016, as was originally planned.
The newest member of the UHealth system was
given the Lennar name following a $50 million lead gift
from The Lennar Foundation, the charitable arm of The
Lennar Corporation. At the time of the groundbreaking,
UM Senior Vice President for Business and Finance and
Chief Financial Officer told The Miami Hurricane that
the lead gift offset enough of the project’s $145 million
total cost and that it could be done in one stage rather
than in phases.
The building is LEED-certified and will provide the
services of the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine and
University of Miami Health System, including outpatient
surgery and urgent care. Cancer care, including chemo-therapy
and radiation oncology, will also be available.
The center will also operate branches of the Sylvester
Comprehensive Cancer Center and Bascom Palmer Eye
Institute. The school plans on moving student health ser-vices
over to the new center.
Construction builds
better campus future
Shreya Chidarala // Staff Photographer
MODERNIZING MEDICINE: Construction of the Lennar Foundation Medical Center, located on the Coral Gables campus, makes headway as completion is projected for fall of 2016.
WHAT’S INSIDE
Page 3:
Protesters return to address sale
of pine rocklands.
Page 8:
Students study the chemistry
of food.
Page 9:
Backup running backs show
promise for Hurricanes football.
By William Riggin
News Editor