Whitworth University is continuing its campus expansion with the planned addition of a new café and bookstore, a new trades and facilities building, and its previously reported health sciences building.

The 7,000-square-foot, $3.1 million bookstore and café will be located next to Hawthorne Hall, just under a block west of Division on Hawthorne Road, says Chris Eichorst, facilities director at Whitworth.

On the west side of campus, near the Pinewood and Waikiki intersection, the university plans to build a new $5 million trades and facilities building to replace its existing facility.

Boise-based Accelerated designed the bookstore and café building, which is being built by Walker Construction Inc., of Spokane. Plans call for the building to be completed by this fall.

The project is being financed through a contract with Sodexo, a food services and facilities management company headquartered in Paris, Eichorst says. Sodexo will operate the café, while Westchester, Illinois-based Follett’s, a retailer of education technology, will manage the bookstore.

Visually, the new café will match the brick façade of existing Whitworth buildings on campus, he says.

Uptic Studios, of Spokane, designed the trades facility, and Leone & Keeble Inc., also of Spokane, is building it.

The current trades facility is located on the north side of campus, near the Robinson Science Hall and Schumacher Hall, on the site where the school plans to place its new $18 million, 38,000-square-foot health sciences building, Eichorst says.

Schumacher Hall currently houses the health and counseling center. Campus officials chose the site for its proximity to existing health and science programs on campus, Eichorst says.

The university hopes to have the new 17,000-square-foot trades and facilities building constructed by the end of summer, so the old facility can be demolished in July and work on the planned health sciences building can begin, says Eichorst.

The health sciences building will be occupied by the university’s new physical and occupational therapy programs, he says.

“The health science building grew out of a strategic enrollment plan to help bring in different demographics,” he says. “There’s a big need out there for physical therapy programs, so we’re trying to fill that need.”

Work is expected to begin in July following the demolition of the current trades building and is expected to be completed by December 2021.

Both the trades and health sciences buildings are being financed primarily through bonds, Eichorst says, though he adds the university is hoping for some donations for the health sciences building.