GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Grand Valley State University announced Tuesday it plans to build a health sciences building on a 1.4 acre parking lot in downtown Grand Rapids, a move administrators say would provide needed space for the university’s most rapidly-growing program area.

GVSU acquired the parking lot – which is adjacent to the university’s Cook-DeVos Center for Health Sciences – from Spectrum Health in a land swap.

Under the deal, finalized Tuesday, Dec. 9, the university gave Spectrum its .88 acre parking lot on Lafayette Avenue and $1.9 million in exchange for Spectrum’s 1.4 acre parking lot.

The map shows the parking lots that were swapped between Spectrum Health and Grand Valley State University.

GVSU President Thomas Haas said the university’s enrollment in nursing and health professions programs is projected to grow, and the university needs more space to serve those students.

“This provides us the capability now to not just take care of those programs, but maybe expand the horizon for other health professions that are important to the region,” Haas said, noting that new programs could include dietetics and therapeutic recreation.

Before the university can construct the new building along Michigan Street's Medical Mile, it needs to line up the estimated $50 to $70 million it would take to build the structure. Construction would commence as soon as that funding could be acquired.

In November, the university’s board of trustees asked the state to kick in $30 million toward the project, under the capital outlay process. Haas said the university could also borrow to fund a portion of the project, and also ask donors to chip in.

Whether the state will include GVSU’s proposal in the next round of capital outlay funding is difficult to say, but Haas says the project fits in with the state’s mission to invest in areas such as STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and health sciences.

“This really provides a nice, strategic view for the state to carry out its need to continue its revitalization, and we can be an integral part in that,” Haas said.

GVSU says its capital outlay submittal, along with other projects, has been “advanced by the Joint Capital Outlay subcommittee for planning authority.” The state House and Senate must also approve the measure.

The land swap comes more than a year after GVSU's purchase of 11 acres north of I-196 in the Belknap neighborhood.

The university has not finalized how it plans to use that property – much of which is currently occupied by rental homes – but Haas said the proposed health sciences building would “complement” any future development. He likened it to the construction of downtown's Eberhard Center in 1988, and how years later, the university moved further west, past the S-curve, to construct the DeVos Center.

“This will enable us to create more of a technical space, the laboratory space and the classroom space necessary, as we provide the planning, especially with the city, on what’s going to happen on the north side of the Ford freeway,” Haas said.

If constructed, the building could enable the university to educate another 1,200 students in nursing and health professions, which includes programs at the bachelor’s level and above, including occupational therapy, physician assistant studies, medical laboratory science, therapeutic recreation and physical therapy, among others.

In its capital outlay request to the state, GVSU said the space crunch at the Cook-DeVos Center for Health Sciences has kept the university from increasing the number of students in health professions programs, and also left the university unable to add new programs.

Which is a problem, considering that demand for health care workers will continue to rise, Haas said.

“If you talk just our partners at Spectrum, they say they need hundreds of physician assistants over the next 10 years,” he said. “So we’ve got to get going.”

Brian McVicar covers education for MLive and The Grand Rapids Press. Email him at bmcvicar@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter