What promised to be an exciting summer for the Arkansas Colleges of Health Education and the Fort Smith area got even more exciting last week.

The school, set to welcome its inaugural class at the end of July, announced plans for a second college a $15 million, 60,000-square-foot College of Health Sciences.

The new college is expected to be ready for classes in 2020 and will be home to several disciplines, including a master of nursing program, a physician assistant program and a post-baccalaureate masters program, ACHE President and CEO Kyle Parker said at a news conference Tuesday.

The schools expansion will mean wonderful things for this area. Weve already seen tremendous growth at Chaffee Crossing, including the recent opening of a Mercy clinic across from the medical school and ongoing plans for businesses at the Warehouse District. Now, Fort Smith is poised to brand itself as a top-notch location for health-care education, with the hope that these future doctors will remain in our area and provide services to what Parker called the most medically under-served area in the United States.

The school has worked hard to make things a little easier on its new students. The Residents, the schools student-housing apartments, are integrated with the school, so if a student is sick, he or she can watch class from home. The school is also paying for all utilities for the apartments. In addition, ACHE announced plans to expand the apartments by 80 units to accommodate students attending the new college when it opens in 2020.

ACHE also also plans to develop a 228-acre neighborhood withassistance fromFort Smith, Barling and the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority, Parker announced. The neighborhood will feature restaurants, grocery stores, apparel stores and more while generating $25.9 million in taxable sales, in addition to 1,900 new housing units planned within the next decade or so.

In other words, the possibilities are endless at Chaffee Crossing and the ACHE. The future is now.

FCRA Executive Director Ivy Owen said he was overwhelmed with pride and joy to hear the expansion announcement, pointing out that the students who stay in the area when they graduate will offer an economic boost to the area, as will the extra generated sales tax.

According to the ACHE, 64 percent of its first class of students comes from the colleges service area of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and Missouri. Forty-three percent of the students are from Arkansas, and 23 percent are first-generation college graduates in their families, the college previously stated. The remaining group of students comes from outside the area, as do a number of the schools professors. What a thrill it is for us to have people from throughout the country come to our neck of the woods to be part of the ongoingdevelopment of Fort Smith into a health-care hub.

Were excited to see the progress and are delighted with the economic and health-care prospects on the horizon. We cant help but feel the rest of the state must be envious of our area because of what the ACHE does and will do for this region. We are fortunate the college decided to call Fort Smith home, and were eager to see how its development plays out in the coming years. It's only going to get bigger and better.

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Editorial: Medical school's expansion boosts area - Times Record