Ground is being broken this week on what will be the new Psychological and Brain Sciences building at the University of Iowa. Professor and department chair Mark Blumberg says the six-floor, 33-million dollar project will take shape where Seashore Hall once stood, located just east of Van Allen Hall.

He says the 64-thousand square-foot facility is designed to propel teaching and research in modern psychology and brain science into a new realm. The psychology department has a long, rich history on the Iowa City campus and Blumberg says it’s among the oldest and most eminent in the country, so this building is decades in the making.

Blumberg says two of the top five psychologists in the nation during the 20th century earned degrees at the U-I.