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Construction is slated to start in summer 2017 on a new $39.5 million University of Alabama at Birmingham's College of Arts and Sciences building. (UAB)

Rendering of new UAB College of Arts and Sciences building. The 160,000-square-foot facility will be located on the corner of 10th Avenue South and 14th Street South. The building will have two wings and include a 300-seat auditorium. This is the corner view of the building from 10th Avenue South. (UAB)

Construction is slated to start this summer on a new $39.5 million College of Arts and Sciences Building at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the university announced today.

The 160,000-square-foot facility will be located on the corner of 10th Avenue South and 14th Street South. The building will have two wings and include a 300-seat auditorium.

"We proposed this new building as a result of the rapid growth of the undergraduate and graduate programs in the college," said Robert Palazzo, dean of the UAB College of Arts and Sciences. "The new building will provide modern teaching facilities and technologies and larger classrooms, and it will be a modern space for students to learn and for faculty to conduct their scholarship and research."

The University of Alabama System Board of Trustees approved stage three of planning for the building in early February, according to UAB.

The Montgomery-based firm Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood, Inc., will serve as architects for the project. The building is slated to be open by fall 2019.

Follow a timeline of the project by clicking here.

The UAB College of Arts and Sciences serves more than half of UAB's student population. The college offers 29 majors and 19 departments. All freshmen, regardless of their majors, are taught by arts and sciences faculty for their core classes. The college also offers more than 30 bachelor, master and doctoral degrees.

The new building will replace the UAB Humanities Building, according to UAB. The building will house the anthropology, computer and information sciences, English, foreign languages and literatures, mathematics, philosophy, and social work departments. The building will also include performance space, administrative support offices and a storm shelter.

"While the Humanities Building has served UAB well for 45 years, it was not designed to support 18,000 students, Palazzo said in a statement. "The facility is simply too small, and it doesn't have the modern expectations to teach the undergraduate curriculum in 2016."

"As a result of the rapid growth of the undergraduate and graduate programs in the college, and the limitations of the Humanities Building, the college proposed the construction of a new Arts and Sciences building located on the Green near Heritage Hall to better serve the students of UAB," he said.

The future use of the Humanities Building has yet to be determined.