PETER FERGUSO
If all goes well, the McDonald Health Center will have a new location by May of 1998, said Val Christensen, director of the center.
The new location, still awaiting official approval, will be in the triangular lot just south of Wymount Terrace on 900 East and will provide 30,000 square feet of flooring and twice as many exam rooms.
'It certainly will give us a better work environment,' Christensen said. 'The new center will also be more aesthetically pleasing to the patients.'
The proposed plans are not a new idea, according to Christensen. A discussion for a new center has been going on for about 15 years.
'The current health center was built in 1955 and was not conceived for the use we have today. A visit to the current center is probably the best way to see we need a new center,' Christensen said.
The original center also housed the ROTC on campus and was designed in a rectangular shape.
'Health care tries to cluster their facilities,' Christensen said.
The process for developing the center has been a detailed one, said Gene Libutti of BYU Planning. After getting the go-ahead from administration, BYU Planning begins to look at the needed number of rooms, size and technology needed.
An architect is then called upon to make a preliminary drawing of the overall layout, and sites are looked at for convenience and practicality.
Next the preliminary plans are submitted back to the administration and, if approved, go through the rest of the three programming phases.
The new Health Center is in the last of those three phases. Christensen is hopeful that the plans will be approved by the end of the year and that the groundbreaking will take place late February or early March.
A cost for the new two-story center has not been made public yet because the bidding process still lies ahead.
The spot Christensen has selected will fill current needs for the center better.
On-campus single students account for 18 percent of the patients at the center, on-campus married students account for 14 percent and off-campus use is at 49 percent, Christensen said.