ASU breaks ground on new Health HQ

Arizona State University didn’t just break ground on another campus building on April 9. It started construction on a downtown Phoenix health hub that is supposed to open in fall 2028 and house the university’s first medical school, a public health technology school, and clinical training space in one place. (news.asu.edu) The site sits in the Phoenix BioScience Core near Fillmore Street and Fifth Street, inside the city’s main bioscience district. Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, and Arizona State University president Michael Crow all attended the ceremony, which shows this is being treated as a state-and-city project as much as a university one. (ktar.com) The building is planned at about 175,000 square feet and five stories, with completion targeted for summer 2028 so classes can start there in fall 2028. The design includes simulation labs, mock operating and emergency rooms, exam rooms, and virtual and augmented reality training spaces instead of just lecture halls and offices. (mccarthy.com) The centerpiece is the John Shufeldt School of Medicine and Medical Engineering, where students are expected to earn a Doctor of Medicine and a Master of Science in medical engineering in four years. Arizona State University says that curriculum is meant to train physicians who can work with tools like artificial intelligence, data science, and medical devices instead of treating medicine as separate from engineering. (news.asu.edu) The same headquarters will also house the School of Technology for Public Health, which is built around digital tools and data-driven public health work. Arizona State University has also said the building will include the new Health Observatory, plus programs from the Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation and the College of Health Solutions. (news.asu.edu) This project has been building for months, not days. In December 2025, Crow used the annual State of the Phoenix BioScience Core event to frame Arizona State University Health as a network with partners including HonorHealth, Mayo Clinic, and Phoenix Children’s, and he argued that Arizona needs not just more clinicians but different kinds of clinicians and technologies. (news.asu.edu) The city has already put money behind that pitch. On March 24, the Phoenix City Council voted unanimously to grant $38 million to Arizona State University Health on top of the $12 million Phoenix voters had already approved, and Gallego called it the biggest bioscience investment in Phoenix history. (kjzz.org) Phoenix officials have also been unusually specific about what they want back. Gallego said the university will work with the city on occupational health, women’s health, and urban public health issues including heat and homelessness, which turns the headquarters into a place for city problem-solving as well as student training. (kjzz.org) Arizona State University is also using the building to expand training capacity at a moment when Arizona is still trying to catch up with population growth. KJZZ reported that the inaugural medical school class is expected to be about 36 students in summer 2026, so the headquarters is arriving after the school launch rather than before it. (kjzz.org); (usatoday.com) So the groundbreaking was really the visible marker of a larger bet: put medicine, engineering, nursing, public health, data, and hospital partners into one downtown building and try to make Arizona’s health workforce grow faster and work differently. If construction stays on schedule, that bet gets its permanent home in fall 2028. (mccarthy.com); (news.asu.edu)