The university owns the site of a former parking lot on N. Broad Street between Venango and Tioga streets. The new 11-story building will contain 249,000 sf of laboratory space for research; a 50,000-sf library; an all-glass tower of stacked, multi-purpose rooms; 16 flexible learning spaces, and a café and lobby. There will also be an interior atrium and usable outdoor space on a raised plaza on Broad Street, and a third-floor bridge that will cross Tioga Street and connect with existing teaching and research facilities. Locally based Ballinger Inc. is the architect.

Funding is split evenly among three sources: $50 million from the state, $50 million from a university bond issue and the final $50 million from the School of Medicine. Most of the latter component has been raised, a university spokeswoman tells GlobeSt.com, "although we are still fund-raising."

Independence Blue Cross has provided $3.5 million to support heart research. Another $1 million is from Cephalon, a Fraser-based pharmaceutical company, and $1.8 million, including a pledge of more than $1 million from professor emeritus Kenneth Cundy and his wife Elsie, is from the school of medicine's faculty and staff.