Colorado State University has opened the doors on the biggest building project its veterinary college has ever taken on. The Veterinary Hospital and Education Complex in Fort Collins covers 213,000 square feet and cost $230 million, a figure that includes a $50 million investment from the state. More than 500 guests came to the ribbon-cutting, which CSU’s news service covered on Oct. 2.
For Northern Colorado pet owners, the practical news is capacity. CSU says the new primary care suite triples what the hospital could handle before, with 24 new exam rooms, alongside emergency and urgent care, critical care, dentistry, ophthalmology, a pharmacy and a new livestock hospital. The specialty hospital entrance and the educational spaces are already open; the remaining clinical areas open in phases over the next few months, with full operation expected by the end of the year. After that, CSU plans to modernize the existing Small Animal Specialty Hospital next door, which offers more than 25 specialty services.
More veterinarians, sooner
The building also changes who trains there and how. Enrollment in the veterinary program grows by about 30 students a year, bringing this year’s class to 170. Under the college’s Ascend Curriculum, students work directly with patients in their first year rather than waiting until their third. CSU President Amy Parsons said the complex brings together the very best of what a land-grant university is meant to do and gives students facilities equal to their talent and their ambition. Dean Sue VandeWoude of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences offered the counterweight: a facility, she said, does not build the program.
Colorado has a shortage of veterinarians, especially in rural areas, so a Fort Collins building that produces more of them each year and handles more animals in the meantime is a win that reaches well beyond the campus.
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