[DetroitMan]

This will be huge for Saginaw...

With plans to expand medical school in downtown Saginaw, CMU hopes to raise $200M

A plan to open a new, 100,000-square-foot building for Central Michigan University’s College of Medicine in downtown Saginaw by fall 2028 will include a $200 million fundraiser scheduled to kick off this fall, college officials said.

Plans to expand the Mount Pleasant-based public university’s medical campus in Saginaw began years ago, gaining momentum as other health care-related organizations and elected leaders invested in what many have coined “the medical diamond” project in Saginaw. The initiative involves growing the number of health care-related organizations in the city, particularly in the riverfront districts where facilities such as Covenant HealthCare and Ascension St. Mary’s of Saginaw hospitals attract patients and medical professionals alike from near and far. The CMU College of Medicine already operates facilities in Saginaw that provide education for about 125 students in the final two years of their studies as physicians.

The planned expansion of the college in Saginaw would create a hub large enough to allow first- and second-year students to study there too. Presently, those younger students begin their education in medicine at CMU’s Mount Pleasant facilities.

The expansion would mean about 400 CMU College of Medicine students in total would study in Saginaw when the planned new building opens in four years, said Dr. George Kikano, the dean of the CMU College of Medicine since 2015. The number of students likely would grow beyond 400 people as the university further expands its resources in the years following the building’s opening.

“This isn’t just about CMU; this is about the region, about economic development, about jobs in health care,” Kikano said. “This is about creating a pipeline for bringing more professionals to this industry.”

https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-b...aise-200m.html