LEBANON - Construction of a two-story, 54,000-square-foot building at the new College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific in Lebanon is expected to begin in January 2010 to serve the first class of 100 students in August 2011.

William Bryan, executive consultant for Western University of Health Sciences, said the main road onto the 53-acre campus is complete and a pad for the new building is in place.

"In August 2011, Lebanon will become Oregon's newest university town," Bryan said. "It's exciting."

The school will add a class of 100 students each year until there is a total of 400 students, Bryan said. The school will create an estimated 50 full-time jobs and put nearly $100 million in capital and operating funds into the mid-valley over a seven-year period.

Bryan said not only will the college be the first new medical school in Oregon in 60 years, but it will also serve students from Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Of those states, only Washington has a medical school.

The school's opening comes at a key time as the number of doctors has not kept pace with the growth in population. According to Bryan, the U.S. population grew by 70 million people from 1985 to 2005, yet the number of medical schools remained static.

Some 20 percent of physicians in the United States are age 65 or older.

"The Association of American Medical Colleges recommends a 30 percent increase in medical school students is needed," Bryan said. "Oregon ranks 43rd out of 45 states with medical schools in terms of medical students per 100,000 population."

Only 17 percent of physicians who practice in Oregon went to medical school here and 60 percent of the state's physicians practice in the Portland area.

Bryan said Samaritan Health Services is an "excellent partner."

Samaritan will pay for construction of the new building - estimated at $12 million to $15 million - and then lease it to the college.

In addition to the medical school, other buildings on the new campus will include a convention center, hotel and retail shops. An apartment complex is under construction north of the campus and will be owned by a private company.

"It's important that our medical students have residency opportunities and Samaritan has promised to make sure that happens," Bryan said. "We now have 11 residents in the system and that will grow to 60. There is a tremendous shortage of residency openings in the country."

Bryan said Western University's focus is to "recruit small-town kids to become small-town doctors, using a small-town medical school."

Bryan said annual tuition per student is about $40,000. The college will be a privately owned medical school and no tax dollars will go into its construction or operation, Bryan said.

In addition to bricks and mortar, the medical school will be filled with the latest in high-tech equipment, including electronic textbooks.

"We chose Lebanon on purpose," Bryan said. "We're proud to be here. We want to be good citizens and that means becoming involved in the communities."

The university has already donated $10,000 to the new Lebanon Public Library for the development of a medical educational materials collection.

Bryan lives in Florida, but spends 11 days per month in the mid-valley working on this project.