The University of Maine will receive $45 million in congressionally directed spending for a health and life sciences complex to be built on the Orono campus, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, announced Tuesday.
This is the largest federal award for a single project in Maine’s history and will better position UMaine to build a public medical school in the future, the release, shared exclusively with the Bangor Daily News, said.
“The new health and life sciences complex will expand educational opportunities, research capacity, and workforce training while better positioning the University on a path toward one day establishing the first public medical school in Maine,” Collins said.
This funding comes two weeks after the University of Maine System released a study that said building a public medical school in Penobscot County is not financially feasible because it would cost at least $210.5 million. The study recommended actions UMaine could take to prepare for a medical school and close the physician gap Maine is facing, which included constructing a health and science complex in Orono.
The health and life science complex was something UMaine President and Vice Chancellor Joan Ferrini-Mundy said the university was looking into following the study’s release.
It’s not immediately clear when the complex will be constructed or what programs it will house.
The complex will be important to health care across the state, not just in Orono, and will prepare students for the “evolving world of modern life science, health care and innovation,” Ferrini-Mundy said.
“[Collins’] support for the planned UMaine Health and Life Science Complex will lead to transformation for our flagship university and the health and well-being of the people of Maine and beyond,” Ferrini-Mundy said.
