Linfield College plans a significant expansion of its Portland nursing school, announcing Monday it has purchased 20 acres in outer Northeast Portland to house the program.

Many Linfield nursing students currently split their college years between its main campus in McMinnville and its current training facility at the Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital in Northwest Portland. But the Portland site is at capacity and Linfield's lease with Legacy was set to expire.

So Linfield spent $14.5 million to buy the campus now occupied by the University of Western States, which offers chiropractic and sports medicine treatment and education. Linfield said UWS is looking for a new site and will lease back the facility until 2020, at which time Linfield will move its Portland site from Legacy to the new campus across town.

Oregon, like most of the rest of the country, is experiencing a severe shortage in nursing – constrained in part by the capacity of nursing education programs. Linfield said its move to the bigger campus will allow a significant expansion of its program, which averages almost 300 nursing graduates annually.

Linfield's current site in Northwest Portland has about 50,000 square feet of office and classroom space, according to the new school. The new campus has 10 buildings of 71,000 square feet altogether, including a lecture hall and anatomy laboratory. It has room to add more buildings, and Linfield said it will consider building student housing on the property.

University of Western States said it is in the late stages of lining up a new site elsewhere in Northeast Portland. The school said the new location has 150,000 square feet of space with access to public transportation and clinic facilities for patients and expects to complete its own relocation within 18 months.

Linfield's main campus in McMinnville is 193 acres. The college said its new site in Northeast Portland will be its biggest expansion since 1998, when Linfield added 115 acres next to its McMinnville site.

Linfield drew on its endowment to pay for the new Portland site. The college says its endowment was $114 million at the end of its 2017 school year.

-- Mike Rogoway | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699