The Forum

STLCC hosted an open house and ribbon cutting ceremony for the newly opened Nursing and Health Sciences Center on Thursday, Feb. 27. It was the first of six new buildings across STLCC’s four main campuses to open as part of STLCC Transformed, the roughly $450 million district-wide construction project intended to update the college’s facilities. 

The Nursing and Health Sciences Center partially opened to students and faculty in January for the spring 2025 semester, and houses STLCC’s Nursing, Behavioral Health Support, and Deaf Communication Studies programs. Roughly a month after it first opened, students, faculty, STLCC administrators, members of the press, and politicians gathered in a room on the fourth floor of the center to dedicate the new structure. 

The Nursing and Health Sciences Center (NHSC) broke ground in July 2023 and cost an estimated $62.9 million dollars to build. STLCC Transformed’s construction projects are mainly funded through Proposition R, an eight-cent tax levy increase for STLCC approved by voters in the district on Aug. 3, 2021. Speakers at the ribbon-cutting, starting with STLCC Chancellor Jeff Pittman, were quick to point to Prop R and grant money from the State of Missouri as the reason the project was possible and as an indication that investments into education at STLCC are widely supported. 

Pittman, who shortly donned an Archers-branded hard hat during the ceremony’s opening remarks, touted that with the help of funding from the community, STLCC has been able to undertake such a massive construction project while also not increasing tuition for four years, with no plans to increase tuition in the future. Following Pittman’s comments was Kevin Martin, chair of the St. Louis Community College Board of Trustees, who reiterated Pittman’s comments. He thanked the State of Missouri for awarding a grant to STLCC that, according to Martin, gave the college enough money to follow through on its construction plans despite inflation. 

St. Louis County Council Chair Rita Heard Days spoke after Martin. Originally, State Sen. Brian Williams was planned to speak but was unavailable, so Days took his place. She was one of a few local politicians to attend the event, including fellow County Councilwomen Shalonda Webb and Gretchen Bangert as well as Mayors Ella Jones and Timothy Lowrey of Ferguson and Florissant respectively. In her remarks, Days called the center a “game changer” and expounded on the great benefits that the new facilities will bring to the North County area, in terms of healthcare jobs and regional growth.

Craig Schluter, co-founder of Navigate Building Solutions, the construction manager of the Nursing and Health Sciences Center then took the stage to discuss details of the building itself. He had spoken on a stage at STLCC less than two months earlier on Jan. 21 at STLCC-FV’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration to accept the Dr. Rance Thomas Excellence in Community Partnership Award on behalf of Navigate with other representatives of the company, many of whom were present at the open house and ribbon cutting. 

Schluter said they were “unveiling a space that will change lives,” and noted how student input shaped the new building, which he said is an improvement on Forest Park’s very similar Center for Nursing and Health Sciences, boasting a slightly larger floor area and more student lounge space. The Forest Park building was completed in 2019 and shares an architect with Florissant Valley’s new NHSC: KAI. 

Another key figure in the new building’s construction, Brian Stoesz, spoke next. Stoesz is the vice president of Paric Corporation, the contractor that worked alongside Navigate to build the Nursing and Health Sciences Center, and said that he and Paric were “proud to play a role in bringing this vision to life.” 

Giving the ceremony’s closing remarks was STLCC-FV Campus President Elizabeth Perkins, Ph.D., and one of the main public spearheads of STLCC Transformed’s efforts on the campus. In a press release accompanying the open house, Perkins had much to say about the new construction, which she reiterated in her time at the podium: “The Nursing and Health Sciences Center has our students at the heart, with every corner of the building created with them in mind.” She continued, “We planned and developed hands-on, real-world learning environments to support their education and career goals, as well as spaces where they could congregate and connect in between classes.” Perkins regularly attends STLCC Transformed-related events and has frequently answered The Forum’s questions on details about the projects on campus.

After the speeches, multiple groups assembled near the stage for various ribbon cuttings, while the crowd gathered to watch the first few; politicians, deans and campus presidents, students, and construction company representatives took turns to be photographed cutting a big, blue STLCC-branded ribbon in the newly christened center. While ribbon cutting formalities were still ongoing, Forum Staff Writer Stephanie Licklider and I were whisked away to a media tour of the building’s modern facilities. We were taken through radiology labs, simulated hospitals, a room with a mock ambulance, anatomy and physiology classrooms, and a gigantic dental clinic, each complete with pristine, bright interior design and new equipment. Many of the working classrooms, especially in the simulated hospital areas, had animatronic patients used to simulate work in healthcare jobs without the complexities of students dealing with real patients; I was told by a tour guide that each of these simulator units, of which there were dozens, cost between $80,000 to $100,000.

The building, while open, is still not fully functional. Additional health-related programs and classes have yet to move into the new space and will do so in the coming months. The dental clinic will open to the public in the upcoming fall 2025 semester and offer low-cost dental hygiene services, similar to those offered at STLCC-Forest Park.