Montana State breaks ground on Great Falls nursing building

GREAT FALLS — Blue and gold shovels dug into soil here Tuesday afternoon during the groundbreaking for a new Montana State University nursing building, a ceremony which marked a step toward improving health care for all Montanans. 

The new building, made possible by a series of donations and investments by MSU and its partners, will improve facilities for students and faculty while allowing the Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing to increase enrollment at its Great Falls campus by 50% to help offset the shortage of health care professionals in the Great Falls area and throughout the state, according to MSU officials. 

Construction of the new building, which will be located near the intersection of 29th Street South and 18th Avenue South, is expected to begin in spring 2024 and be completed by the start of the 2026 fall semester. Benefis Health System donated 2 acres of land for the approximately 22,000-square-foot, two-story building. 

The historic $101 million philanthropic investment made to MSU in 2021 by Mark and Robyn Jones, who have a home in Whitefish, will fund the new building. The total cost for the project is expected to be about $14.8 million, according to MSU project manager John Scott. 

At Tuesday’s ceremony, MSU President Waded Cruzado, along with other administrators and partners, delivered short speeches and participated in the ceremonial groundbreaking, which was held indoors at a nearby building with dirt from the future construction site. 

Cruzado spoke about her first meetings with Mark and Robyn Jones and their shared vision for improving health care across the state.

“We could have built a $101 million building in Bozeman, but that would not have cut it,” Cruzado told the audience of students, staff, alumni and local health care workers. “We decided to make a commitment to the entire state.” 

MSU’s nursing college will hold groundbreaking ceremonies for new buildings at its four other locations — in Billings, Bozeman, Kalispell and Missoula — in spring 2024. 

Historically, the nursing college has operated out of leased facilities. The new buildings will be designed specifically for educating nurses and include multiple labs and study areas, according to Sarah Shannon, dean of the MSU nursing college. 

“It is fitting that we are breaking ground here in Great Falls first, because this is where it all started,” she said. 

MSU’s nursing college was founded in 1937 with students completing their pre-requisite courses in Bozeman and their upper division nursing coursework in Great Falls. Over the decades, the college has expanded  to its four other upper division locations across the state. The MSU college of nursing produces more registered nurses than any other institution in the state and is Montana’s sole provider of doctoral nurse practitioner education. 

The health care industry is “plagued by all kinds of worker shortages,” said John Goodnow, CEO of Benefis Health System. He called the Jones’s investment a godsend. 

Susan Luparell, MSU nursing college’s Great Falls campus director, told the audience of well over 100 people how faculty and students have bounced between buildings during the last 86 years. While showing appreciation for the college’s former hosts, she expressed gratitude for finally having a permanent home. 

“It is impossible to overstate what this investment means to our college, community and state,” she said.