CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Case Western Reserve University will build a new medical school with the support of two $10 million grants -- one from the Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation and the other from the Cleveland Foundation.

For both foundations, the grants are the single largest awards made in their histories. The Cleveland Foundation's gift is also the first in what President Ronn Richard said will be a series of large grants the foundation will make to celebrate its centennial in 2014.

CWRU must secure an additional $30 million before construction of the proposed five-story building on East 105th Street, the former site of the Mt. Sinai Medical Center, can begin. The university plans to break ground by 2016.

"This really represents a new era for the Case Western Reserve University medical school," university President Barbara R. Snyder said Wednesday, when she and foundation officials outlined the project at The Plain Dealer. "We are excited about our future, and it demonstrates their faith in us."

The formal announcement will be made this afternoon.

The school of medicine, one of the top 25 in the country as ranked by U.S. News & World Report, and the largest biomedical research institution in Ohio, was founded in 1843 as the Medical Department of Western Reserve University. It is now located in a building that housed laboratories for research, said Dr. Pamela Davis, dean of the school.

Davis said that while those who accredit the school have lauded its teaching, research and curriculum, they have found that the building itself fell short. Medical education has evolved from large lectures to small groups and an emphasis on learning through experience, she said.

As a result, students need access to technology, laboratories and rooms for seminars, Davis said.

She said medical schools that CWRU considers to be its peers have, in the last five years, either built new schools or announced their intention to build.

And, like other schools, CWRU has been asked by the Association of American Medical Colleges, the accrediting body, to increase its class sizes because of the growing need for primary-care doctors, Davis said.

'''The new 160,000-square-foot building would allow CWRU to boost the size of the incoming class from 152 to 185.

In addition to its medical students, each in-coming class also includes 32 students in CWRU's partnership with the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and 14 students in CWRU's joint M.D./Ph.D. program. The new building will also house the university's community health programs.

"CWRU made it known that if it was to achieve a new building it would have to rely on philanthropy," said Mitchell Balk, president of the Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation. He noted that because the university does not operate a hospital, it cannot rely on gifts from grateful patients.

"By way of this grant and others before it, we are stating loudly that we believe Case medical school will continue to play that pivotal role in the future of Cleveland's health care and bioscience communities," Balk said.

He added that foundation officials are pleased the new $50 million medical school will be built on the former site of the Mt. Sinai Medical Center. CWRU paid $1 million to purchase that building and $5 million to pay back taxes in 2001 after the hospital's owner declared bankruptcy. Most of the 14 acres on CWRU's West Campus are vacant, except for a parking garage and a 25,000-square-foot building the university built for biomedical research.

The Mt. Sinai foundation, formed as a result of the 1996 sale of the medical center and related hospitals, has long supported CWRU. It provided $5.5 million to establish the Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation Scholars Program for the medical school to attract researchers and in 2011 awarded it an additional $2 million.

Mt. Sinai also provided a multimillion-dollar grant to establish the Case/Mt. Sinai Skills and Simulation Center, an interdisciplinary center that will relocate to the new medical school.

As for the Cleveland Foundation, "we are extremely excited about this project and impact that it will have on community health in Cleveland, on Case's ability to maintain itself long into the future as a world-class medical school, and on the revitalization of another section of Cleveland," said Richard.

The Cleveland Foundation, established in 1914, was the world's first community foundation. A spokeswoman said in an email that the "extraordinary" grants the foundation will make to celebrate its 100th anniversary "will look to strengthen Cleveland's future for the next century."

The Cleveland Foundation is one of the largest cumulative donors to CWRU.

In 2005, for example, its $5 million grant launched the Center for Proteomics and Bioinformatics to support research in the study of proteins and their changes in disease. In 2011, it approved $1.5 million for research at the school of medicine into cells and membranes.

Both foundations are hoping their gifts will lead other donors to support the project.

Davis said the university could start building before 2016 if it has enough money pledged. University officials are estimating it will take 18 months to construct the new medical school.

The Cleveland Foundation's grant to CWRU is comprised of contributions from four donors who left gifts to the foundation in the 1960s and 1970s that were earmarked for medical research and education, said Richard.

It pooled the funds from the Henrietta Teufel Memorial Fund, the John and LaVerne Short Memorial Fund, the Alma M. and Harry R. Templeton Memorial Fund, and the Mabel R. Bateman Memorial Fund.

CWRU is in the midst of a $1 billion capital campaign, and Snyder said it will approach donors specifically to support the new medical school. She said she has shared the university's plans with its partner hospitals, University Hospitals and the Cleveland Clinic, but she did not indicate if those officials have shown any inclination to help financially.

"It would be wonderful, but we plan to ask lots of people for help," she said.