As University of St. Augustine readies to break ground, here’s the strategy behind growth (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — The University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences is set to break ground on its new campus on Monday — and with the development, the institution will be closer to expanded services to its students and the community.
University CEO and Chancellor Vivian Sanchez said construction will begin Monday at the new campus at One News Place in St. Augustine (pictured above), moving the university closer to being able to relocate from its current site about 2 miles away, at 1 University Blvd. near Flagler Hospital. The construction will be at the site of the old St. Augustine Record newspaper operations formerly owned by Morris Communications Co., which sold the complex for $7.54 million in 2020.
“This has been a very long effort for us with this move. So, the due diligence has been extensive,” Sanchez said. “… We thought it was really important to stay close to where we were already.”
Due diligence showed the site of the old Record location near the corner of State 312 and State Road 207 was relatively clean, despite the use of industrial ink and heavy-duty warehouse facilities.
“We did some significant environmental studies of the area, including biological, to see if there were any specific habitats that we might be impacting with our construction and it came back to our satisfaction,” Sanchez said. “It’s basically a clean site.”
Sanchez said the university plans to keep intact the 40,000-square-foot building that was left over from The Record operations while also building a significant additions. Ultimately, there will be more than 120,000 square feet of operational space when the project is complete in late 2024, including expanded study spaces, student learning support technology, faculty and staff offices, workspaces, conference rooms and student amenities.
A ”series of wings” will be added to the new location at the former Record location adding up to a $74-million project, Sanchez said. The developments come after the university delayed construction until they agreed upon proper engineering, permitting, design, funding, contracting and additional elements fell into place.
With the $74 million project, Sanchez said the graduate-level health-care university will see improvements.
“The strategy is going to continue in the same path that it’s been. But what we’re doing is we’re going to create a state-of-the-art facility which is all around innovation, which is what we’re about,” Sanchez said.
There are about 1,1000 nursing and health care students and 300 faculty and staff at the University of St. Augustine Health Sciences. The new facility will increase the number of “simulation” medical operational conditions to 18 beds. The center looks identical to a hospital ward.
“It will give us more spaces tailored to the academic delivery that we do,” Sanchez said. “We also do a lot of community service, so we have pro-bono clinics. This will give us more spaces appropriate to have these pro-bono outreach efforts that we have.”
More of the medically underserved population of St. Johns County will be able to undergo treatment from faculty and students at the university. Sanchez said those services are offered at the current facility, which has about 12 beds, but the new location will be able to handle more patients once it’s complete.
Other additions at the new location will include half a dozen assessment rooms, daily living lab and Anatomage virtual reality dissection tables.
Sanchez said the school has no target for increased enrollment. But she acknowledged growth will likely happen.
“It’s all graduate health sciences and physical therapy and occupational therapy. The demand for that is huge,” she said. “Our business is pretty simple: We see a significant health care need… . We feel like we’re uniquely positioned to fill that need.”
While the internal impact on the university is hard to overestimate, Sanchez said when the project is complete, it will have a major impact on the community.
“Half the students don’t even come from Florida. So, we’re able to attract talent into the state of Florida and generate practitioners that the state doesn’t generate for itself,” she said. “We’re bringing dollars into the community and we’re bringing talent and capabilities into the community that it doesn’t have.”
The University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences is an upper-level medical training and educational facility. Sanchez said the equipment and material they need is not inexpensive.
“There’s a lot of economic purchasing power. And you have to think about the faculty that we have that we pay above the national average, and many are practicing clinicians. We bring employment into the area,” Sanchez said.
She added the university has more than 500 medical partners for externships and residencies in Florida that serve as an employment pipeline for students.
The university was founded in 1979 by Dr. Stanley Paris and moved to St. Augustine in 1991. It was purchased by University of St. Augustine Acquisition Corp., an affiliate of investment firm Atlas Partners, in 2019.
The institution also has campuses in Miami, Dallas and Austin, Texas and in San Marcos, Calif., near San Diego.