The
University of South Florida in Tampa is building a new, four-story office building on campus to handle its student and administrative growth, but the activities inside will reach far beyond the Tampa Bay region.
Some of the staff on the second floor of USF's administration building, including the president's and provost's offices, will move to the top two floors of the
Dr. Kiran C. Patel Center for Global Solutions, which is now under construction on the Fowler Avenue campus near the Alumni Center. It is scheduled to be completed next year.
This move will allow other office space to free up on campus for some schools. The Honors College and graduate school will move to the administration building.
The Patel Center will also house its partners. Faculty and staff will tackle global issues such as ecological balance, urbanization, migration, safe drinking water and sanitation solutions.
The new Center is part of a larger vision called USF World, which will promote international education opportunities for USF students and for foreign students to take classes at USF.
Doctors Kiran and Pallavi Patel in Tampa contributed $5 million to the building project and the state of Florida matched the donation.
The facility will be the first environmentally friendly LEED-certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building on the USF Tampa campus and has been designed to conserve energy and resources.
Next on the horizon for USF is the construction of the first phase of the undergraduate support building on the Tampa campus. The university has not finished designing that building.
Writer:
Dave Szymanski
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