Sep. 13—A second medical school for downtown Wichita is inching closer to reality as the Kansas Board of Regents this week will consider a proposal for a $302 million, 470,000-square-foot Health Science Education Center in the heart of the city.

The venture is a joint project with the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita, Wichita State University and WSU Tech.

The schools have previously stated the need for research, collaboration and healthcare education in a centralized place.

This “is just the next step,” said Garold Minns, dean of the KU School of Medicine-Wichita. “There’s a lot of other things that have to happen just right.”

Even if the board were to approve the center, Minns said, “Just the Board of Regents approving it doesn’t mean you’re going to break ground tomorrow.”

There are already discussions of ways to fund the center, but he said it likely would take two to four years to raise enough money for it.

Though the schools are eyeing downtown for the center — where the new nonprofit Kansas Health Science Center and its Kansas College of Osteopathic Medicine recently opened — Minns said there’s no site that’s been selected.

In early 2020, word circulated that KU was in talks to move its campus to a possible river development downtown, though at the time Minns said only that there were discussions about expanding the school’s footprint at Ninth Street and I-135 because some of the school’s students still have to take two years of classes in Kansas City.

KU’s main Wichita building is about 70 years old.

“We’ve been talking for a decade about what our potential expansion plans would be,” Minns said.

Also, KU has some clinics, and those would consolidate with the school if the new downtown center materializes.

Minns said WSU, too, is “somewhat boxed in by the size of their buildings” for health sciences.

He said WSU approached KU to suggest “maybe we should talk about doing something together because we share some similar spaces.”

“Why replicate if it’s space we can share and there’s economies of scale?”

More information about the potential deal is available at wichita.edu/trendingtopics.

According to that page, about 200 faculty and staff members and 3,000 students would be at the center.

The center is on the Board of Regents’ agenda for its meeting Wednesday and Thursday.

The potential center is not about keeping up with the Joneses, Minns said, and has nothing to do with the new osteopathy school downtown.

In an e-mailed statement, WSU President Rick Muma said the same thing.

“Rather, it is common to locate medical corridors in a city’s downtown because they can often benefit nearby community partners and spur on additional collaboration opportunities,” Muma said.

“We’ve reviewed other communities with joint health sciences centers, such as Phoenix, Houston and Seattle — and they all thrive and grow in their downtown corridors.”

This story was originally published September 13, 2022 2:22 PM.

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