ROCK ISLAND, Ill. — A new $18 million project is going up on Augustana College's campus. The new Peter J. Lindberg Center for Health and Human Performance will be 7th Ave. in the heart of campus. At the moment, it's three exterior walls, but it will be home to kinesiology and public health majors.
"Public health, I mean the urgency is there right now, kinesiology with an aging boomer population," says Kent Barnds, Vice President of External Relations for Augustana College. "We want to serve these publics that need to be served throughout these academic programs."
Currently, public health classes are scattered across campus. But the new facility will be a central campus location. Construction started in the winter of 2020 and will also include a 7 ft. pool, which will be regulated for new men's and women's water polo teams.
"We are going for what we call "substantially enclosed" by the onset of the hard winter," says Patrick Lemkuil, with Russell Construction. "So we'll have the roof on, all the windows in, most of the exterior walls up."
The project will be complete in the spring of 2021 and will include a therapy pool for athletes, classrooms for students, and faculty offices.
"We believe given the interest of public health across not only the nation but the globe, that our public health program is ready to just explode," Barnds says.
The Lindberg Center will open to students in the fall of 2021.