Butler County Community College is starting construction on a 25,000-square-foot facility that will feature a hospital-like setting, with state-of-the art skills labs, simulation labs, classrooms and a lecture hall.

The Victor K. Phillips Nursing and Allied Health Building is a $9 million project that has been years in the making, and seeing the construction process finally begin at a ceremony Wednesday made Janice Phillips Larrick excited about the future.

Phillips Larrick is a former nurse at Butler Memorial Hospital whose Janice Phillips Larrick Charitable Trust contributed $1 million to the project, and she was praised by the BC3 administrators at Wednesday's groundbreaking ceremony.

“It's exciting, it's promising, it's love,” Phillips Larrick said after the ceremony. “It should be a reflection of the students and a place to learn.”

The new facility is part of an $18 million south campus expansion project. The Victor K. Phillips Nursing and Allied Health Building could open by 2023, according to a news release from BC3.

Read more in Thursday's Butler Eagle.