KALAMAZOO, MI Leaders of the Western Michigan University medical school announced Thursday the future downtown Kalamazoo campus will be named the W.E. Upjohn Campus for the founder of The Upjohn Co.

Last December, MPI Research announced it would donate a building near the northwest corner of Portage and Lovell streets to WMU for the medical school.

The more than 300,000-square-foot building was part of the downtown campuses of pharmaceutical companies Upjohn, Pharmacia and then Pfizer, and has been known as Building 267. It is slated to undergo renovations and a small expansion starting later this summer, and is scheduled to be ready for use by August 2014 for the opening of the medical school.

W.E. Upjohn founded what became The Upjohn Co. in 1886 and was its president for 43 years.

"This property represents the beginning of the greatly expanded Upjohn campus, which included this building throughout the life of the company," William U. Parfet, the great-grandson of W.E. Upjohn who is now chairman and CEO of MPI Research, said in a statement released from WMU. "It only makes sense to our family that this would be the headquarters for the WMU School of Medicine."

The medical school, being developed by WMU in partnership with Borgess Health and Bronson Healthcare, is awaiting accreditation. The Liaison Committee on Medical Education recently granted the school "candidate medical school" status. According to a statement from WMU, the committee is planning a preliminary accreditation visit to the campus.

WMU last year announced it had received a $100 million gift for the school from anonymous donors.

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Western Michigan University medical school building to be named after W.E. Upjohn