In about three years, that ground will be home to the private university’s five-story Dickey Science Innovation Center.
“All the necessary components for the future will be in this building, and it will provide generational opportunities,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, an alumnus, said at the ceremony. “This is a great day for the University of Tampa.”
The center is touted as the “most significant academic facility investment in the university’s 94-year history,” according to the its website. The university declined to share the total cost of construction.
With 25 teaching laboratories and 23 research laboratories, the building will be the point place for the school’s College of Natural and Health Science while aiding other science coursework throughout the campus, such as forensic science, chemistry and microbiology.
Paul Greenwood, dean of the college, said the center will be a relief to faculty and students whose classes are currently housed in eight different buildings across campus.
“The research laboratories are all collaborative, larger, shared laboratories, so people won’t be working in isolation,” he said.
Other features of the 153,000-square-foot building include three microscopy rooms, four aquarium research labs, two tissue culture labs, a classroom dedicated to bioinformation and computer sciences, an advanced instrumentation laboratory, one 35-seat general-use classroom that will eventually convert to a 20-station instructional lab and 73 faculty offices.
Scott Gossen, the university’s assistant vice president of construction and design, said that plans for the center considered the changing educational landscape in a time of artificial intelligence.
“If you look at the design of all the labs, all the things that are fixed and difficult to move are on the periphery of the labs,” he said. But on the inside, everything is “modular and flexible."
“As AI changes the way kids learn in the future, we want to be able to address that.”
To highlight its waterfront location, all student spaces in the center will face the river. The center will also include three outdoor spaces: a riverside garden adjacent to the west end of the Riverwalk, a pedestrian access point and a green space between the center and the university’s communication and media studies building.
The building is named after the family of Dr. Stephen F. Dickey, a former university trustee who was founder, president and CEO of Tampa-based Doctor’s Walk-In Clinic. He is currently the president of Dickey Holdings Inc., a philanthropic firm in Tampa, and he and his wife Marsha Dickey are longtime donors. The center was made possible by a “significant investment” from the family.
The science center marks the second campus facility named for the family after the Dickey Health and Wellness Center, which opened in 2011.
“This Dickey Center will be transformative. It will be the centerpiece and catalyst in the university’s growing prominence in science education and research,” University of Tampa President Teresa Abi-Nader Dahlberg said.
Campus officials hope the building will be open by fall 2028 but are cautiously planning for the following spring. Construction is set to begin May 11 after commencement ceremonies.
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