Ground will be broken for Iowa State’s new Student Health Center this Friday.

At 11 a.m., students and university officials including Robert Patterson, director of the ISU Student Health Center; Tom Thielen, vice president for student affairs; Dan Mangan and Jennifer Sulentic, president and vice president of the Government of the Student Body; Graduate Student Senate leaders; the International Student Council and the Student Health Advisory Committee will be present for the ceremony.

“We are very excited,” Patterson said. “It’s been a long time in planning and it has been carefully planned. It has the potential to increase efficiency.”

The new center will be three times as big as the old building, which Patterson said will allow for more exam rooms and more use for personnel.

“It’s a unique project,” Patterson said. “Students, through their representatives, have voted to tax themselves to do this. We have to remember that it’s their building.”

The building will be paid for largely by additional fees assessed to students. Clinic user fees, such as in the pharmacy, also will help with funding.

Sulentic said the new building will be more accessible for students.

“I haven’t heard of any opposition of it and being that it’s a service all students can use, I do feel it is important,” she said. “I also think it will be essential for parking.”

Construction is set to begin immediately on the two-story facility and is to be completed around May of 1997.

Harold Pike Construction, of Ames is the contractor for the $6.1 million project. The building will replace much of the parking lot on the left side of Beyer Hall.