A Cullen Tower for medical education and research will soon commence construction in Houston, Texas. Recently, Baylor College of Medicine revealed its plans to build the 503,000-square-foot educational facility. The project will be part of the initial phase of Baylor’s planned Health Sciences Park, an 800,000-square-foot development.
The new 11-story Cullen Tower will be built adjacent to Texas Medical Center’s 37-acre Helix Park campus. The developer set out to raise $150 million for the project through donations. Thus far, Baylor has received $100 million in gifts and a $30 million contribution from three organizations. The Cullen Foundation, the Cullen Trust for Health Care and the Cullen Trust for Higher Education contributed towards the project.
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Other lead donations for the Cullen Tower project include $12 million from DeBakey Medical Foundation and $10 million from Huffington Foundation. Additionally, Baylor’s Board of Trustees and other community donors also raised over $45 million for the project.
Design plans for the Cullen Tower project
The architect of the Cullen Tower project, SLAM designed the facility to include a state-of-the-art educational space. Additionally, the facility offers a courtyard along with a common area for students, faculty, researchers and clinicians to gather. There will be small group and studio classroom sizes to facilitate active learning.
The design plans also include a technologically advanced theatre-style event space and a cutting-edge anatomy lab. Simulation and teaching labs will be built to provide practical and immersive learning experiences as well.
Baylor’s President and CEO, Paul Klotman, said the idea behind the Cullen Tower project was to change the future of health. He mentioned that in order to achieve this goal, they needed a great building to recruit great talent. Therefore, Klotman said the project’s location was quite significant. Especially since it’s also the location of their clinical programs and where the data scientists are.
He pointed out that the facility would also be next to the biotech development centre. As a result, the medical students integrated into that environment will be well prepared for a future in healthcare.
