The University of Valladolid (UVa) plans to start in a few months the most important action it will undertake in the coming years in terms of infrastructure: a profound reform of the Health Sciences building. These facilities are located on Avenida de Ramón y Cajal and degrees in Medicine, Nursing, Speech Therapy, Human Nutrition and Dietetics, Biomedical Engineering and Biomedicine and Advanced Therapies are taught there.
It is regarding facilities punished by the passage of time. In fact, the three candidates for rector in the last UVa elections agreed on the need to undertake a renewal on which the team of the current rector, Antonio Largo, has been working for some time.
So much so that the investments for the first phase have already been defined and a project has been drafted. In total there will be 11.5 million for a reform that will affect the central building, which occupies regarding 10,000 meters of the 30,000 of the entire complex.
The first of these investments will be around four million and aims to undertake the energy rehabilitation of that property. This project is already drafted by the Technical Unit of Architecture of the UVa and is pending funding from the Next Generation funds of the European Union (EU). This intervention will affect 7,623 square meters of façade, including the central patio, and 1,967 meters of roof. The objective is for the envelope to be more efficient from an energy point of view in order to gain savings and advance in the decarbonisation of the facilities. It is a “complex” work because it requires “the greatest respect for buildings”, they point out from the Vice-rectorate for Heritage and Infrastructures of the UVa.
New animal shop. If all goes well, these works will begin before the end of this year, as will the next investment: a new animal facility to replace the one now located in the undercover of the same building. This project is in the process of being drafted, although the UVa hopes that the first facilities can come into operation this year, following an investment of 500,000 euros. It will only be a first contribution, because the complete cost of the animal facility, including subsequent actions, will be 3.5 million.
The third investment that completes the 11.5 million of this first phase is a reconfiguration of the interior building, to which another four million will be allocated. The Lecture Hall and the Deanery will be located there. It is regarding the property offering a distribution according to its new services. It should be remembered that two of the six degrees taught there are recently created.
The vice-rector for Infrastructure, Julio Grijalba, acknowledges the difficulty of defining execution deadlines, as these depend on several factors, such as financing, which will come through three channels: own funds, Next Generation aid from the EU and the plan of university investments of the Board that will have to be defined in the coming months, since the current one covers the years 2016-2022. The regional government already knows the plans of the UVa in this building.
Obtaining external financing is a very important factor, but it does not condition the plan. The arrival of this money might extend the deadlines, but in the academic institution they are clear that this project will be one of the most important in the coming years. “The building needs a boost that we must start to undertake now,” says the vice-rector, who also maintains that the objective is to make these works compatible with the academic activity of the building, however complex it may be.
These first three actions are only a first phase, because the complete reform also contemplates acting on the 20,000 square meters that are not part of the central building. But for that we will have to wait a little longer.
