Restrictions Updated as Implosion Draws Near

Access to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) campus will be restricted this weekend in preparation for the implosion of the Student Dormitory at 9 a.m. this Sunday.

Starting at 7 a.m. on Sunday, security personnel will be positioned around campus to direct people away from restricted areas.

Hospital patients are asked to limit visitors to two the day of the implosion. Visitors will be required to have a special pass to enter the hospital. The passes will be available at the nurses’ station.

Some buildings will be closed or have restricted access until after the implosion. They are Ward Tower, the hospital, the Shorey Building, the Education II building, the College of Public Health, the Central Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute (CARTI) building, the Child Study Center, the PET Building, the Outpatient Center, the Jones Eye Institute, the MRI building, the Arkansas Cancer Research Center and Barton Research Building.

Also closed will be connecting bridges to the VA Hospital, Jones Eye Institute, the Outpatient Center and the Biomedical Research Center.

Building entrances and campus access will be reopened after the implosion as they are cleared of any dust and authorized by UAMS police.


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Tickets Still Available for ‘Last Blast’ Party

Tickets are still available to the “Last Blast” party on Feb. 18 celebrating the next day’s implosion of the UAMS Student Dormitory.

The event will begin at 6 p.m. Saturday at Ricks Armory on Palm Street. Barbeque and refreshments will be served, with live music by The Groan Ups.

An auction will be held for the right to push the plunger to signal the dorm implosion. Little Rock radio station KMJX, Magic 105, is taking call in bids in the days leading up to the party, where there will be additional bidding before a winner is selected.

Tickets to the Last Blast party are $50 each ($25 for UAMS students with a student ID). For more information on the party, call 526-5049 or email mbass@uams.edu.

The UAMS Student Dormitory opened in 1959 when the campus looked far different than it does today.

Implosion Clears Way for Hospital Expansion

The artist renderings are striking. There is a dramatic, grand entrance into the airy, inviting front lobby of a glass and brick structure unlike any building on the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences campus.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg for the 500,000-square foot addition to the UAMS Medical Center that will be built at the site of the dormitory following its implosion. Construction will start this summer with a scheduled 2008 completion for the hospital expansion that will include needed space for UAMS’ patient care programs and services to grow.

Following the implosion, the adjacent Jeff Banks Student Union and nearby Child Study Center will be torn down and debris from all of the structures cleared from the site. Then construction will begin on the hospital addition, which will connect to both the adjacent Ward Tower and the Outpatient Center.

The hospital expansion will give the medical center a capacity of 270 adult beds in private rooms. Preliminary plans also call for the addition to include space for a new emergency department, additional surgical and interventional suites, admissions, an intensive care unit, an intermediate care unit and other services. There are plans to provide unfinished space for future expansion of the neonatal intensive care unit as well as two unfinished floors that will give UAMS a total of 390 private patient rooms when complete.

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