Cleveland‘s ongoing efforts to solidify its place among the nation’s top cities for medical education got a new face last week when Foster + Partners unveiled new designs for a joint “Health Education Campus” run by the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University.
The 485,000-square-foot building, sited for the intersection of East 93rd Street and Euclid Avenue, conceals millions of dollars of medical equipment beneath a broad, overhanging plane meant to recall the midwestern horizon.
The designers are targeting a Spring groundbreaking date, assuming they get approval from the city’s Planning Commission on meetings scheduled December 4 and 5. As the Cleveland Plain Dealer‘s Steven Litt observes, the building—which could cost anywhere from $197 million to $388 million—is part of a larger trend:
The Cleveland Health Education Campus is part of a national construction boom in medical education. The medical college association’s website lists 145 current projects at colleges and universities that total $30.4 billion.
In an accompanying commentary piece, Litt lauds the project as “a fresh sign of Cleveland’s evolution as a postindustrial city” but raises questions about Cleveland’s reliance on outside architects.