The Hudson Center, a new home for the Duke Eye Center, is expected to finish construction by July 2015.
The new facility, which started construction in 2012, is being built in the parking lot next to the current Wadsworth Eye Center. It will replace the current clinic building that was built in 1970. The Duke ophthalmology department is ranked among the top 10 departments nationwide, and the clinic gets referrals form across the country. The number of patients seen by doctors at the center has grown rapidly over the past few decades.
“We are excited about this new space which will enable us to expand our clinical care, education program, and eye research,” Chair of Ophthalmology Dr. Edward Buckley said.
The new four-story building is planned to be more than 116,000 square-feet and will have upgraded equipment. It will also feature the signature Duke Stone that lines the exteriors of many campus buildings. The center is currently on track to be completed slightly ahead of schedule and under budget, Buckely said.
Durham-based LC Industries, the largest employer of visually impaired people in the United States, has contributed $12 million for the construction of the new building.
The new facility will increase the number of faculty and staff working at the eye center, Buckley added. Although the center has 30 doctors, the current space only has space for 12. The new facility will better address patient needs and allow the eye center to continue growing, he said.
Duke Ophthalmology is currently ranked as the sixth-best eye hospital in the country by U.S. News and World Report.
Doctors at the Eye Center have said that they hope the new building will help to further improve the reputation of the Duke eye program. The former director of the Duke Eye Center, Dr. David Epstein, who has since passed away, said in 2012 that the new building could help Duke Ophthalmology to become the best ophthalmology department in the country.
“We have the oldest clinical facility of any top-20 eye program in the country,” Epstein previously told The Chronicle. “After the new building opens, we may be ranked first in the country.”
Building the new facility, which will completely replace the old Eye Center, has been a major construction project. Buckley said, however, that the ongoing construction has not affected the current operations of the eye center.
“The construction is in the previous parking lot, so the construction has not affected us that much, though some patients can get confused how to get here,” Buckley said.
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