GRAND RAPIDS ? The Van Andel Tuesday unveiled plans for a $150 million expansion of its medical research and education complex in downtown Grand Rapids in the heart of the city?s health-care district.
Ground will be broken next spring on the 280,000 square foot addition to the west side of the original 186,000 square foot building, Phase I, which opened in 2000. Construction is expected to be completed in 2008. Some 300 construction jobs and 400 staff jobs are expected to be created, said VAI Chairman David Van Andel.
?This expansion will complete the promise for the physical facility originally planned back in 1996,?? Van Andel said to more than 100 guests attending the press conference in the VAI?s auditorium, which also marked the fifth anniversary of the facility. ?It will more than double our lab space and allow us to move more aggressively into research related to Parkinson disease, Alzheimer?s and other chronic illnesses.
?It will also increase our capacity to impact human health through basic and translational cancer research as well as provide expanded avenues for commercialization efforts that complement this research and improve human health.?
VAI co founder Jay Van Andel, the father of David, had Parkinson’s disease, a disorder of the central nervous system that involves a degeneration of nerve cells in parts of the brain. The elder Van Andel died last December. The other co founder, Betty Van Andel, Jay?s wife and David?s mother, died in January 2004.
The expansion will provide VAI with the room to add an Education Institute to launch a graduate program in 2006. The Institute recently received approval from the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth to award Masters and Doctorate degree in cellular and molecular biology, with an emphasis on translation. Up to 25 graduate students will enroll in the four- to five-year degree programs.
What?s more, the strengthening of VAI?s research and educational programs is hoped to add further incentives to Michigan State University to move its medical school to Grand Rapids, Van Andel said.
The VAI expansion will ultimately support an operation in excess of $100 million annually. Once the Institute is operating at capacity, it expects to employ about 600 people.
