Dirt and predictions of great things to come flew at the groundbreaking for the Wichita Biomedical Campus. Led by Gov. Laura Kelly, two dozen elected officials, educators and others turned over ceremonial shovels of soil on May 8 to launch the $300 million campus.

“I can’t wait to come back and see this campus and the impact it will have on health care all across the state,” Kelly said.

Other speakers used words like “momentous” and “audacious” to describe the campus, a partnership of KU School of Medicine-Wichita and KU School of Pharmacy-Wichita, Wichita State’s College of Health Professions and Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic, and WSU Tech’s health care program that will bring some 3,000 students and 200 faculty downtown.

Jeff Fluhr, president of the Greater Wichita Partnership, served as master of ceremonies and urged the crowd of several hundred people not to hold back.

“This is a celebration. If you want to applaud, applaud,” he said.

The crowd, sprinkled with lots of Shocker yellow and Jayhawk blue, repeatedly did just that.

The campus represents the largest capital investment in Wichita’s history, Fluhr said. “Projects such as the biomedical campus define a city.”

The first phase of the campus — a $205 million, boldly-designed eight-story tower scheduled to open in 2027 — will be located at the southeast corner of Broadway and William, currently home to a parking lot. Its 355,000 square feet will hold classrooms, laboratories and simulation rooms for hands-on training and more. Wichita State and WSU Tech will share the first four stories, the fifth story will be a shared simulation floor with simulated hospital and patient rooms, and KU will use the top three stories for classrooms, workspaces and offices. 

The second phase will be located directly east across South Topeka Avenue, where the Wichita Transit Center — slated to move to Delano — now sits. Plans and funding for that phase have not been finalized, but it’s expected to bring the campus’ total square footage to 471,000.

“Now who thought this wasn’t going to happen?” WSU president Rick Muma asked the crowd with a smile. “I talked to several of you.”

“It’s been years in the making,” he added. “Lots of conversations, challenges.”

Muma said the campus should produce medical breakthroughs and better outcomes for patients, and also noted the synergistic possibilities of the campus’ location near two recent downtown additions — the Kansas College of Osteopathic Medicine and WSU Tech’s culinary school, called Niche.

“It is here that the future of the city will be transformed.”

Muma’s counterpart at KU, Chancellor Douglas Girod, credited Muma for spearheading the project.

“Every once in a while, somebody comes up with a crazy, audacious idea,” Girod, himself a physician, said. “Rick did that.”

Girod also singled out Garold Minns, longtime dean of KU School of Medicine-Wichita, who Girod said was “here when it started.” Minns, a 1976 graduate of the school, jokingly put his finger to his lips in a “don’t tell” gesture.

Many others were also involved, Girod said, from the Kansas Health Foundation, which provided seed money for planning, to the city of Wichita, which furnished the site, to lawmakers in Topeka who approved $190 million in funding. “It speaks to how many hearts and hands have been involved in this.”

Noting that KU Wichita started out as a two-year campus before expanding to a four-year school, Girod said the campus “gives us the ability to expand further and that had been difficult.”

Kelly hailed the campus as Wichita’s “next chapter” and called it “a great example of what can be accomplished when our leaders are willing to put aside political differences.” She said the campus should help Wichita and Kansas draw and retain talent and spur additional development in the biomedical field.

Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson of Andover followed Kelly, noting that it “might be more impressive” that northeast and south-central Kansas worked together than that Republicans and Democrats agreed on the campus.

Many speakers mentioned personal connections to the health care field. In addition to Girod, Masterson and House Speaker Dan Hawkins of Wichita both said that their daughters are nurses. Ryan Baty, chair of the Sedgwick County Commission, said he’s a KU grad married to a nurse who graduated from WSU.

Baty also noted that the county has committed to locating a new, $15.5 million COMCARE behavioral crisis center directly south of the campus, where the access to faculty and students will help serve “some of our most vulnerable” residents.

On a broader scale, Baty said, “Wichita will be known for our influence on the next generation of workforce. They will be needed more than ever and this community is answering the call.”

Students from the four partnership schools stood and waved to the crowd: Caty Bourbonnais, a health management major at WSU; Kayli Gonzales, a nursing student at WSU Tech; Michala Sliefert, a third-year medical student at KU School of Medicine-Wichita; and Dylan Montgomery, a fourth-year pharmacy student at KU School of Pharmacy-Wichita.

Mayor Lily Wu, a WSU grad who wore a Shocker yellow blazer, got the last word but made sure to emphasize the partnering aspect of the campus.

“Congratulations to the Jayhawks and the Shockers, and let’s watch Wichita win.”

To see more photos from the groundbreaking, view the Flickr photo album or click on the image below.

Speakers at Groundbreaking

Jeff Fluhr, Wichita Downtown Development Corporation president
Rick Muma, Wichita State president 
Dr. Douglas Girod, KU chancellor 
Laura Kelly, Kansas governor
Ty Masterson, Kansas Senate president
Dan Hawkins, Speaker of the House
Ryan Baty, Sedgwick County commissioner 
Lily Wu, City of Wichita mayor 

Groundbreakers

Jon Rolph, Kansas Board of Regents
Dr. Greg Hand, WSU College of Health Professions dean
Telly McGaha, WSU Foundation and Alumni Engagement president & CEO 
Dr. Sheree Utash, WSU Tech president 
Courtney Sendall, WSU Tech Foundation executive director 
Dan Martin, KU Endowment president 
Dr. Matthias Salathe, KUMC interim executive vice chancellor 
Dr. Akinlolu Ojo, KU School of Medicine executive dean 
Dr. Garold Minns, KU School of Medicine-Wichita dean 
Dr. Ronald Ragan, KU School of Pharmacy dean
Dr. Bradley Newell, KU School of Pharmacy-Wichita assistant dean
Michala Sliefert, third-year KU School of Medicine-Wichita medical student
Dylan Montgomery, fourth-year KU School of Pharmacy-Wichita student
Caly Bourbonnais, WSU College of Health Professions student
Kayli Gonzales, WSU Tech healthcare student