University at Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences has a new space to call home. Officials held a ceremonial ribbon cutting on the new downtown building Tuesday morning.
The new building is located at the corner of High and Main Streets in downtown Buffalo. The 628,000-square-foot facility cost $375 million and was paid for through public and private dollars.
UB President Satish K. Tripathi said, "Moving the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences downtown is a major milestone for the University at Buffalo that has been a decade in the making. UB is now poised to achieve our vision of excellence in medical education, research and patient care.”
Officials said the new building allows the Jacobs School to expand its class size by 25 percent, from 144 to 180 students, training many more doctors to address local and national physician shortages. This year, the Jacobs School admitted its first class of 180 students; by 2021, the school's enrollment will reach 720 students. That expansion, in turn, boosts UB's ability to recruit and retain world-class faculty with medical expertise in specialties that the region sorely lacks so that Western New Yorkers do not have to leave town for specialty care.
Students will start classes there on January 8.
