University of Central Florida President John Hitt, Provost Terry Hickey, and College of Medicine Dean Deborah German participated in a tree topping ceremony at the UCF Health Sciences Campus at Lake Nona on December 12, 2008.
The group watched as a crane hoisted a 12-foot oak tree to the top of the College of Medicine Educational building under construction at Lake Nona. It is one of two buildings that will house UCF’s medical school.
The tree topping ceremony is a tradition that construction companies often celebrate when a milestone is reached on a project without any fatalities. Balfour Beatty Construction invited members of the UCF and the College of Medicine community to the site to watch and celebrate with a picnic lunch.
President Hitt and Dr. German thanked the workers on site for their contributions to the project and also signed an interior wall of the building. Although the wall will be covered when the project is complete, it serves as a time capsule to mark this moment in history.
The Educational Building is scheduled to open in 2010. Nearby construction crews are finishing the Burnett Biomedical Sciences building, which will house several state of the art laboratories and M.D. Anderson Cancer Research Center. The Burnett building is set for completion in 2009.