The University of New England's new pharmacy school is on schedule for a fall 2009 opening, according to UNE officials who held a ceremonial groundbreaking for the school's new building on the Westbrook College Campus in Portland.

The new $12.3 million, 48,000-square-foot building will be completed in the summer of 2009, in time for its first students in the fall. Fifty-three pre-pharmacy students are currently taking classes at UNE's Biddeford campus.

The new building will house rooms for pharmacy practice, sterile products and pharmaceutics labs, a drug information center, classrooms and offices for faculty and administration.

The research floor, with over 10,000 square feet of assignable space, has been designed to accommodate six principal investigators with laboratory and core equipment space.

The building is designed by Port City Architecture and built by Allied/Cook Construction, both of Portland. It will be the first UNE "green" building and is registered for LEED certification.

l-r: UNE Provost and VP of Academic Affairs, Jacque Carter; UNE College of Pharmacy Dean John Cormier; UNE President Danielle Ripich; UNE Board of Trustees Chair Vincent Furey