The federal government today donated the 22.5-acre Bienville Homes housing project to Louisiana State University for a major expansion of its medical school in New Orleans.
The tract, appraised at approximately $1.5 million, contains 68 buildings which will be used for the medical school for 10 years and then razed to build new facilities.
The donation was announced by Sens. Allen J. Ellender and Russell B. Long and Reps. F. Edward Hebert, Hale Boggs and James H. Morris-son.
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THE BIENVILLE Homes project, no longer used as resi-
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dences, is bounded on the west by Bayou St. John and, City Park and on the north by Florida ave. and the Southern Railway tracks. It lies four miles from the LSU medical school's present location at 1542 Tulane ave.
The donation was made by the General Services Administration.
The Louisiana lawmakers said the property will provide much needed space for expansion of the medical school for housing of faculty members, interns, resident physicians, and medical graduate students.
"In the years to come, it is envisaged that this large medical center will include not only an expanded medical school, but also schools of basic medical science, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, hospital administration, public health and a graduate medical school," they said,
THE LSU BOARD of supervisors and president Dr. John A. Hunter, in their application to GSA administrator Bernard L. Boutin, said the acquisition will give the medical school a long-range opportunity to boost its pres-I ent enrollment of about 700 j students to a total of 2,500. I The existing buildings will ! be used for laboratories, in-j dependent investigations by advanced students, an occupational and physical therapy teaching program, vocational rehabilitation studies, a child study unit using closed circuit television, Cevil Defense medical instruction, a germ-free animal laboratotry, and standard basic medical classrooms. About 31 of the buildings will be converted for student and faculty housing.
LSU officials said the new facilities will permit the medical school to consider additional research projects in which the Army, Navy, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Institutes of Health have expressed interest.
