A $2.1 million nursing simulation lab, when complete, will finish a multiyear renovation project of the Colorado Mountain College Spring Valley campus focusing on bringing more students and community members up the hill outside of Glenwood Springs.

The new education center will, over time, allow the school’s nursing program to more than double the 96 students it currently serves, Campus Dean Heather Exby said, helping to address a need felt at both the local and national levels.

“It’s a huge priority because it’s a huge community need,” Exby said. “I think that, when you look at that world of where you get the biggest bang for your buck, it really is in that space. Nursing is such a high-demand area.”

Currently, the nursing program operates out of two rooms in the campus’ educational building. Hospital beds with training models are crammed into a smaller space, with an office converted into a mock operation room, complete with a two-way mirror.

The new space, slated for completion in July, will resemble an actual hospital with distinct patient rooms and a proper mock-operation room.

Also in the space will be two debriefing rooms with video access to CMC’s other high-fidelity nursing education centers in Steamboat Springs and Breckenridge and a traditional classroom space.

Students will have access to more than 90 training situations across all demographics with training mannequins, from infant to geriatric scenarios to birthing.

The new lab will allow students to achieve 50% of their preclinical training on campus, vs. the current setup’s 20%. The facility also is allowing the college to offer a bachelor’s degree in nursing, currently only offering an associate’s.

Expansion of the program will create more qualified nursing candidates, especially locally, as demand for nurses is expected to exceed supply in the coming years by up to 13,000 positions by 2025, according to data provided from CMC.

With the current and impending shortages in mind, the project received backing from regional hospitals Aspen Valley, Grand River Health and Valley View.

“We recognize that nursing candidates being educated in this valley want to remain in this valley,” Aspen Valley Hospital Chief Operating Officer Elaine Gerson said in a release. “This unique program gives us the means to create meaningful training and career opportunities for those bright minds.”

The lab is the final piece of a renovation project the school broke ground on for more than $35 million in 2018. The center will be based in the bottom level of the renovated student center, which saw a facelift to the tune of a two-story dining hall, study space looking out over campus and Mount Sopris and a scaffolding structure supporting a group of hammocks.

Spring Valley also added the Ascent Center for out-of-classroom services and the outdoor leadership center and fieldhouse, a 32,000-square-foot space with a gymnasium, climbing wall and expanded weight room and the Isaacson Prototype Lab for media and trades production, with tools like 3-D printers and traditional woodshop rigs.

In addition to buildings, the campus has developed new mountain bike trails and a disc golf course. The campus also has plans to develop on-campus apartments for students.

Between the services, the emphasis on panoramic views and even the courses offered, it comes back to getting students and the community to visit and use the campus.

“So many times we bring people up here and they go, ‘Oh my gosh, I never knew this was up here,’” Colorado Mountain College Vice President for Advancement Kristin Heath Colon said. “We’re trying to figure out how to best get the word out so people know that it’s here and it’s a community resource.”

The new nursing education center will be up and running by fall.