Health care building in the works at BC3
Site preparation is underway for the largest construction project in Butler County Community College history – a state-of-the-art, hospital-like facility that will prepare students in BC3 health care programs for their future occupations.
The $14 million Victor K. Phillips Nursing and Allied Health Building is part of a $21 million south campus construction project that began in June 2020. It will house the college’s Shaffer School of Nursing and Allied Health, which now is in the business and health professions building.
BC3 sent sympathies to the Phillips family when Victor’s wife, Janice Phillips Larrick, died March 20. The Janice Phillips Larrick Charitable Trust donated $1 million for the facility’s creation, one of the largest donors to the project.
The building will feature an immersive learning environment with skills laboratories and simulated medical-surgery and ICU rooms modeled after those at Butler Memorial Hospital, according to Dr. Patty Annear, dean of the Shaffer School of Nursing and Allied Health.
BC3 president Nick Neupauer said the facility will change learning for the college’s health care students.
“It is a different type of facility,” Neupauer said. “It’s a different type of space. It is high-tech. It is simulation. It is space that very much accommodates not only a 21st century institution of higher education, but more specifically, a 21st century Shaffer School of Nursing and Allied Health.”
The building is expected to open in fall 2023. BC3 and community officials broke ground on the facility Oct. 20.
In addition to enhancing educational programming, the Victor K. Phillips Nursing and Allied Health Building will “definitely change the skyline of BC3,” said Shawn Glancy, project manager for general contractor R.A. Glancy and Sons of Gibsonia.
