COLUMBIA — The University of South Carolina board of trustees signed off on plans for a new medical school campus Dec. 19, advancing the $300 million project promising to bring a 320,000-square-foot research and academic building to Columbia's BullStreet district.

That medical school, planned as a C-shaped limestone and glass building bracketing a tree-lined quad, is set to be the first stage of USC's plans to develop a larger health science campus on its property between Harden Street and Page Ellington Park.

Expected to be ready for researchers and students for the fall 2027 semester, the new building will replace USC's current medical school facility at the Department of Veterans Affairs campus on Garners Ferry Road. The university has occupied that site since 1980, but its lease is up in 2030, prompting the university to move on from the "compelling challenges" of renting a medical school. 

University President Michael Amiridis called the board's approval a "historic decision," moving USC closer to a "transformational campus that will bring all the health sciences together."  

The new building will open up space to grow the medical school's annual classes to 130 students, said Derek Gruner, university architect, up from around 100. It would sit across the street from a parking deck and a utilities plant also included under the $300 million price tag — believed to be the largest infrastructure project of any of the Palmetto State's public colleges. 

Funding for the project is evenly split three ways between state appropriations, university funds and bond debt, Gruner said.

The School of Medicine's academic and research activities will be split between the building's two wings, said Heather Mitchell, president of the Columbia-based Boudreaux architecture firm. Initial plans for the campus had separate academic and research buildings, but "stakeholder input" pushed the two together. 

"They really came together as one building, so that everybody comes in the main entrance, (and) the faculty and researchers and students and staff are all interacting with each other to foster that collaborative spirit, that then turns into the next big idea," Mitchell said.

USC has laid out a research focus on dementia and developmental disorders for the new campus, The Post and Courier previously reported, with the goal of differentiating itself from other medical programs in the Southeast.

USC Medical School Bull St. 2

USC's proposed future plan for its BullStreet health sciences campus between Harden Street and Page Ellington Park. Provided

Space for the school's researchers will be modular, allowing for their work to grow over time, Mitchell said, and with the intention of putting research on display instead of punting researchers into a "dark wing by themselves." 

Architecturally, Gruner said the new building is meant to evoke some of the same notes as USC's historic main campus, but with the modern updates that students expect from a medical school — more glass, fewer historic columns. It would include a café and rooftop terraces, Mitchell said. 

Moving forward, USC is aiming to expand its BullStreet presence beyond the new medical school building, with plans for four more health science buildings on the campus.

Those buildings could house graduate programs, health science research or clinical opportunities, but there's not yet a planned time frame for the development or construction of those additions, Gruner said. 

USC Medical School Bull St. 3

A rendering of USC's planned medical school campus in the BullStreet corridor of Columbia. Provided

The BullStreet site is also just down Harden Street from Prisma Health's Richland Hospital campus, where USC will base its Brain Health Center, the hub of its planned Rural Brain Health Network.

USC received $30 million of one-time state funding and $5 million in reoccurring dollars for those projects, which are meant to help treat Alzheimer’s disease and dementia around South Carolina.

The site is being outfitted with new equipment, said university spokesman Jeff Stensland, and should be ready around June 2025. 

The new medical school building project still needs to go through a few more approval steps from the state, including approval from the state Commission on Higher Education, but the university expects the project to move through those hurdles, Gruner said.

"We anticipate being in a position to break ground by the end of 2024," said John Keegan, senior vice president of Gilbane, the developer and construction firm working on the project.

Reach Ian Grenier at 803-968-1951. Follow him on Twitter @IanGrenier1. 

Education Reporter

Ian Grenier covers K-12 and higher education in the Columbia area. Originally from Charleston, he studied history and political science at USC and reported for the Victoria Advocate in South Texas before joining the Post and Courier.

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