Overview | The Building Inside & Out, with Video | Education & Research | Construction Progress & Live Video

Work is underway on what promises to be a signature building for the Eastern Virginia Medical School campus in downtown Norfolk.

The construction firm W.M. Jordan has begun pouring concrete pilings for the four-story brick, glass and stone structure that is scheduled for completion prior to the start of fall classes in 2011. EVMS has secured the services of primary architect Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas + Company, which has partnered with Cambridge, Mass., architectural firm Ellenzweig to design the structure. Ellenzweig has designed health sciences structures at Harvard, MIT and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, among others.

The project includes something the campus is short on: green space. The building will front on a large grass courtyard surrounded by shade trees and benches.

The new space - 100,000 square feet in all - will allow the medical school to meet a critical need by providing increased capacity to train more physicians and physician assistants. National health-care officials have called on all medical schools to boost enrollment to stem a pending medical staffing shortage as Baby Boomers begin to retire and require more care.