Medical college officials to visit Mid-State Tech

From marshfieldnewsherald.com: “Medical college officials to visit Point on Thursday” — Representatives from the Medical College of Wisconsin will be in Stevens Point on Thursday to view the community as the possible site for a new campus.

Stevens Point Mayor Andrew Halverson said the representatives will be visiting the campuses of Mid-State Technical College and the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, and do a general tour of the community.

“We’re looking forward to having the opportunity to having them tour our community. We feel like we bring exactly to the table what this college is looking for,” Halverson said.

In June, the medical college announced plans to locate a satellite college in Green Bay and another in central Wisconsin. Stevens Point, along with Wausau, Mosinee and Marshfield, is among the possible locations being considered in the region.

The college will announce its choice for the new campus in November. About 15 students are expected to be part of the first class at each of the two new campuses when they open in 2015, and would expand to 25 students by the second year.

The city announced Sept. 10 its bid for a campus, the main part of which was offering the current Mid-State building on Sims Avenue as the location. The building will be vacated after the college moves downtown as part of the city’s redevelopment project for the former CenterPoint MarketPlace.

The city is demolishing part of the mall and will move MSTC into the former J.C. Penney wing of the mall. The college would be offered about 8,000 square feet of the MSTC building initially, but that could be expanded to as much as 30,000 square feet.

“The Mid-State location is a great plus because it’s already been used as a teaching center,” Halverson said. “We are also the only community with a four-year comprehensive university, which will allow those new students to have a comfort level here.”