A small ceremony yesterday marked the placing of the last steel beam in the structure of a new building on North Park Avenue. Named McClelland Park, the building will house the John and Doris Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences and is scheduled to open for the fall 2008 school year.

The process of building the $1.6 million McClelland Park began three years ago when the Family and Consumer Sciences department decided they needed more space to accommodate their students.

“”We have to have new space to grow any further from that,”” said Soyeon Shim, director of the school. “”It became apparent that this is very timely for us to venture into a new building, and it was a dream three years ago and it’s becoming a reality.””

The old building was approximately 35,000 square feet, but the new building will be 70,000 square feet, Shim said.

The first floor of the building will be student-focused, with classrooms, lecture halls and a lounge. The second floor will house academic programs such as honors programs and a student activity center. The floor will also feature an observation room in which students can watch children behave and interact with others as a part of the Institute for Children, Youth and Families, a part of the college. The third floor is dedicated to faculty and research areas. The fourth floor will house the retail college, Shim said.

The outside of the balcony will also house a four-story, shaded exterior plaza, said Mark Kranz, an architect who worked on the project from the firm SmithGroup Inc., who designed the building.

The next step in construction will be pouring concrete and the building of secondary structure such as bricklaying and glass, Kranz said. The building is designed using a brick exterior and will match the motif of other buildings on campus.

“”The building very specifically responds to the historic core of the campus with Cochise right across the way and all these other historic buildings here,”” Swarz said.

McClelland Park is funded entirely by private donations. It is common for buildings to be funded by private donations, though UA does budget some money for construction, said Melissa Dryden, program coordinator for Facilities Design and Construction at the UA.

Several donors were present at the ceremony.

Norman McClelland was modest about having a building named after his family, instead highlighting the importance of the programs in the department the building will house.

“”Both of these programs, I think you would have to rank them up in the top five,”” McClelland said. “”You don’t find that everywhere on every campus.””