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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The University of Kansas School of Medicine in Wichita is assessing its facilities as it develops plans to ask the Kansas Legislature for increased funding for a future expansion.
The university hired Helix Architecture and Design of Kansas City, Missouri, to assess the facilities and compile a report that university officials will use to develop cost estimates for the expansion, The Wichita Eagle reported (http://bit.ly/1lrLP2O ).
Dean Garold Minns said he hopes to have the information ready by the September.
"It's premature for us to go to the Legislature with proposals when we don't even have a good estimate of the cost or how much square footage we need. This will help us formulate that," Minns said.
The expansion plans are part of a goal to have 80 students receive all four years of medical school on the Wichita campus. Currently, the school has 28 students who take all four years at Wichita but about 50 students have completed their medical training in Kansas City.
"We're really pretty much at capacity right now," Minns said.
Helix is also performing facilities assessments for the medical school campus in Kansas City, Kansas, Minns said. That campus recently received $25 million in state bonds and another $25 million from the Hall Family Foundation for a new educational building. The remaining costs for the $75 million project will be paid by the university and its endowment, with the building scheduled to open in fall 2017.
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Information from: The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle, http://www.kansas.com
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