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(NewsDakota.com) – Jamestown College held a groundbreaking ceremony Friday for the new McKenna-Thielsch Center, a future laboratory building for the science and nursing departments.

Work at the building site between Orlady Hall and the Hansen Center on Jamestown College’s campus has already begun. It is expected to be open for classes in the fall of 2013.

The three-story McKenna-Thielsch Center will featured eight large state-of-the-art laboratory classrooms, as well as a greenhouse, a lounge and study space.

Polly Peterson, the Vice President for Institutional Advancement, says the construction of the new laboratory building is part of a two-phase project. She says phase one is building the McKenna-Thielsch Center, which is a $9 million project and the “biggest capital project the college has ever undertaken.”

Phase two involves a renovation of Orlady Hall, which is the existing science building.

The McKenna-Thielsch Center is named after Margaret McKenna-Thielsch, the lead donor for the project and a graduate of Jamestown College in 1943.

Thielsch was unable to attend the ceremony, but asked Peterson to relay that education has always been very important to her family, which includes several teachers, and they are very happy to be a part of the new project.