The former Acheson Hall on UB’s South Campus has been stripped down. The 147,000-square-foot structure, vacant since 1994, is the future home of the School of Pharmacy. Kapoor Hall will be the first facility designed specifically for the needs and anticipated growth of UB Pharmacy, which is ranked in the top 25 pharmacy schools in the nation, according to U.S. News and World Report.
Kapoor Hall is named in honor of alumnus John N. Kapoor, who as a college graduate in India received a scholarship from UB that allowed him to complete a Ph.D. in 1972. A highly successful entrepreneur in the pharmaceutical industry, Kapoor has never forgotten UB’s generosity. Through the John and Editha Kapoor Charitable Foundation, he has given more than $10.8 million to UB Pharmacy, inspiring several other major donations in support of the new state-of-the-art facility that will bear his name.
The location of Kapoor Hall unites the pharmacy school with the other UB health sciences schools that comprise UB’s Academic Health Center: dental medicine, medicine, nursing and public health and health professions. The move is a return to the City of Buffalo, where the pharmacy school- the university’s second oldest entity, next to medicine- was founded more than 120 years ago. Since 1977, the pharmacy school has resided in Cooke and Hochstetter halls on UB’s North Campus.
Designed by architects S/L/A/M Collaborative, the building’s construction is making optimal use of public and private funds. New York State has provided $46 million for the $62 million construction project, with the rest coming from UB and private donors, to create a contemporary, highly functional and ecologically friendly teaching and research facility.
Besides state-of-the-art classrooms, the building will include patient assessment suites, student organizational and meeting spaces, study areas, computer labs, social gathering spaces, offices, conference rooms, apothecary museum and a café.
Completion is scheduled for the summer of 2012.