The Veterinary Medicine Instruction Addition will provide space for a state-of-the art clinical techniques laboratory for veterinary students and new faculty offices, seminar space, and small conference areas. It will also serve as a new main entrance to the college and showcase Hokie Stone. (Image courtesy of HKS Architects)

Dr. Gerhardt Schurig, dean of the veterinary college, joined construction workers on Tuesday, Feb. 21, to place the first batch of the dolomite limestone in the façade for the new Veterinary Medicine Instruction Addition.

“This is not only a milestone in the construction of the Veterinary Medicine Instruction Addition but also a turning point for the veterinary college as a whole,” Schurig said. “For the first time, our students, faculty and staff, and visitors will experience Virginia Tech’s distinctive visual appeal when they enter the veterinary college.”

Dr. Gerhardt Schurig (right), dean of the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, lays the first Hokie Stone on the Veterinary Medicine Instruction Addition.)

Approximately 176 tons of Hokie Stone will cover about 2,000 square feet along the front of the Veterinary Medicine Instruction Addition. Upon completion, this building’s entrance will become the main entrance to the veterinary college. Last summer, construction crews from the W.M. Jordan Company broke ground on the $14.1 million, 30,000-square-foot facility. The new building will provide instructional space for a state-of-the art clinical techniques laboratory for third-year veterinary students as well as new faculty offices, student seminar space, and small conference areas. “We hope that construction on the Veterinary Medicine Instruction Addition will be complete this summer prior to the Class of 2016’s arrival in August,” Schurig said. “The new building, plus the planned renovations to laboratories and classrooms, will deliver a modernized, attractive, and interactive study environment for our students.” The new instructional facility is not the only construction

project at the veterinary college. Last November, a $10.5 million, 16,000-square-foot Infectious Disease Research Facility opened to provide laboratories and support space to accelerate translational medicine research. The college is also now in the preliminary planning stages for a 90,000-square-foot Translational Medicine Building, which will include integrated research laboratories and an extension of the Veterinary Teaching Hospital. The college will share the building with Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and College of Science to conduct interdisciplinary research and translational medicine.