After approving a total budget for 1996-97 of $1.06 billion, the Board of Trustees granted final approval May 10 to plans for a $143 million Medical Center construction and renovation project, bringing to a close almost five years of discussion and three and a half years of planning.
The improvements to the Medical Center will include the creation of the "Duke Clinic." This $94 million portion of the project will include renovating 172,000 square feet of Duke Hospital South, improving the infrastructure in another 600,000 square feet and constructing a new 124,000 square foot reception and clinic building.
Construction on the new facility is scheduled to begin this fall and, because renovations need to be broken down into phases, will not be completed until the spring of 2002.
The second of the three major aspects of the project is a $44.8 million ambulatory surgery clinic and adjoining clinical information management office building, which is slated to begin construction this summer. These new buildings will be located on a vacant site adjacent to the Medical Center's Parking Garage III on Fulton Street just off the Durham Freeway. Medical Center officials hope to complete this phase of the project by the spring of 1998.
The final stage of the construction project will be to build a $4 million facility dedicated to cosmetic services and dermatologic surgery. Construction for the facility, which will be located next to the Duke Center for Living on Morreene Road, will begin pending the state's issuing certificates of need required by law for any hospital to open new facilities.
Roy Bostock, chair of the Business and Finance Committee of the Board of Trustees, recommended the project for final approval after a "thorough look through by both the Business and Finance and Buildings and Grounds Committees over the last couple of years and the development of a plan consistent with tentative approvals" granted by the Board last year.
These changes have been in the planning stages since they were first presented to the Buildings and Grounds Committee in September of 1992 and are the result of a three-year assessment of Medical Center facilities. The evaluation team, headed by Steve Sloate, former vice chancellor for Medical Center planning, communications and marketing, studied the needs of individuals, families, insurers and government. They concluded that these groups of consumers demanded greater access to high quality care and better cost-effectiveness.
Bostock said the project would be financed through $143 million in loans, bringing the University's total outstanding debt to approximately $400 million. The University will maintain capital reserves that have been built up over the last several years, which will remain available to service the debt.
The Board also approved a balanced budget for both the University and the Medical Center. The $1.06 billion represents a 4.4 percent increase from last year's budget. It is the second budget of the University's long-range plan developed in 1994, which calls for sustaining and improving the quality of academic programs while controlling administrative costs.
In endorsing the University budget, Executive Vice President Tallman Trask, Chancellor for Health Affairs Ralph Snyderman and Provost John Strohbehn wrote a letter to the trustees expressing confidence in the University's ability to maintain a sound budget in the face of continuing challenges, such as those generated by uncertain federal trends in health care.
"Our focus will remain on excellence in teaching, research and patient care; on nurturing a diverse campus community that supports intellectual achievement and personal growth; and on carefully managing our costs to ensure that all who invest their resources and their confidence in Duke receive the greatest possible return," Trask, Snyderman and Strohbehn wrote.
Included in the coming year's budget is a 13 percent increase for undergraduate financial aid. Even with such an increase, however, the trustees affirmed their strong commitment to a need-blind admissions policy and meeting every student's demonstrated financial need.
IN OTHER BUSINESS: Immediate-past Duke Student Government President Peggy Cross, Trinity '96 and Michael Tino, immediate-past president of the Graduate and Professional Student Council and fourth-year graduate student in cell biology, delivered their farewell addresses to the Board of Trustees.
Tino emphasized that while graduate students make up 45 percent of the University's student body, the large majority still feel marginalized and that a great deal needs to be changed to improve graduate student life.
Cross addressed the recent major changes that have taken place at the University, including the completely revamped residential and alcohol policies. While she said that these changes have been painful for the student body, students and administrators are now seeing the benefits of those changes.
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