Students, staff and community members from DeBakey High School for Health Professions gathered on the construction site for its new school on Wednesday to sign a steel beam that will be used in the building.

The new $64.5 million building project is being built under HISD’s current bond program located on the western side of the Medical Center complex on land donated by the Medical Center.

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DeBakey will receive a new 198,000-square-foot building five-stories high to  accommodate 900 to 1,000 students. The facility will feature state-of-the-art medical training equipment with teaching labs for dental, rehabilitation, and patient care. These will include mock hospital rooms and science labs designed to mimic real-world research labs.

“It’s pretty impressive,” said DeBakey ninth-grader Lucy Zhang. “It’s going to be amazing once it’s completed, and we’re able to move in and go to school here. It’s much bigger, and I feel that it gives an opportunity for larger classrooms and preferably more room to do hands on activities.”

After the beam-signing, workers will transport it to the construction site to install in the new building, scheduled to open for students in August 2017.