The new Student Health Center building is scheduled to be completed by June 1997, said Dean McCormick, an engineer with Iowa State’s facilities planning.

The new building is currently under construction at the west end of campus along Union Drive, just west of Beyer Hall. The Student Health Center, Wellness Center and health education rooms will make their new home in the building, said Robert Patterson, director of student health.

“The main advantage we see immediately is an ability to be significantly more efficient,” Patterson said. “The one issue that will need to be addressed is the possibilities of offering services to children of students.”

The student health staff is considering providing physical exams, well-child care and advice to children of students. “There are about 3,000 children. The decision as to whether to do it or not hasn’t been made, but the commitment to look at it has been made.”

Iowa State students are paying for the new building. Beginning in the fall semester 1995, students were charged an $8 health facility fee. “That will go on for approximately 18 years,” Vice President for Student Affairs Tom Thielen said. He compared it to the Lied Recreation Athletic Facility. “Without the students, we couldn’t have built it.”

The student health fee last year was $42. Next year, Thielen said, it should be $44, but it won’t be because of the new building. “If [the health fee] increases it will only be because of inflationary increases.”

Patterson said he thinks the design of the new building will be pleasing.

“Conceptually, I think its a beautiful building,” Patterson said.

The building’s front faces the road, but the body of the building is twisted to the left at a 15 degree angle.

“By angling it, they were able to move it back on the lots more and get better space,” he said.

Project architect Gary Van Dyke of Baldwin White Architects, Des Moines, said the angle creates more green space at the north side. The color of the brick and the limestone ornaments reflect the Westgates.

“Visually it creates a lot more interest on that corner. We saw that corner as being very important for the campus with the Westgates being there,” Van Dyke said. “The message [the architecture] sends to the students is that it’s an open building for them, for their purpose.”

Van Dyke graduated from Iowa State in 1980 with a bachelor of architecture, and again in 1984 with a professor of architecture degree.

Thielen said he is unsure as of yet which groups will occupy the space in the Student Services Building after the health center is gone. He said the Minority Student Affairs Office should move there from Beardshear Hall.

Thielen said more would be known in a month. “We’ve got about a year to figure this out,” he said.