15 January 2026

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Building the Next 50 Years of Gator Dentistry

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For nearly 50 years, the UF Dental Science Building and its 11‑story tower have greeted patients, practitioners and future Gator Dentists.

“When the current building was completed in 1976, that really became a cornerstone of our success,” UF College of Dentistry Dean A. Isabel Garcia said. “Inside its brick walls, we built the foundation for everything we’ve achieved.”

Beyond its role in the college’s story, the tower has become a Gainesville landmark: a guidepost for drivers heading toward campus on Archer Road and a beacon for emergency helicopter crews as they approach the UF Health Emergency Department’s helipad at night.

In recent months, that landmark has entered a years-long transformation.

Scaffolding now climbs the dental tower as crews start the first step in a phased renovation and addition. The work begins with carefully removing the brick façade and replacing it with a durable panel system that meets today’s performance standards and ties to the design of what’s coming next.

“In the coming years, this building will transform with a modern, open and welcoming design,” Garcia said. “A new facade, a state-of-the-art addition, and renovated spaces. The space where we are today will become a hub for immersive learning, advanced patient care and cutting-edge research.”

On Dec. 4, 2025, a ceremonial groundbreaking with the UF Foundation celebrated this momentum and the transformation ahead. It’s a vision being realized through historic support from the state of Florida.

“This is the largest investment of its kind that our state has ever made,” UF Board of Trustees Chair Mori Hosseini said during the event.

He continued, “It sets a new benchmark for what is possible when Florida’s leaders believe in an institution’s mission, its impact and its future.”

When complete, the project will add more than 100,000 square feet for teaching, research and patient care at Florida’s only public dental school. Hosseini said he sees the renovated dental tower and substantial addition as a new gateway to UF and the Academic Health Center.

The scale is real, and so are the outcomes. This project will provide more space to teach and train, more operatories where patients can be seen promptly, and labs that bring care and discovery closer together.

“Florida keeps growing, and that growth brings a huge demand for skilled dental professionals,” Hosseini said. “This project helps us with that demand. It helps us serve more families. It expands access to care, and it strengthens Florida’s workforce for decades to come.”

The speakers’ remarks kept returning to the people who will walk these halls and use these spaces.

UF Interim President Donald Landry, M.D., Ph.D., framed dentistry as one of the “most refined healing arts,” reminding the audience that patients “come [to UFCD] with various states of distress” and “leave relieved and repaired.” The building, he said, should serve that focus.

“The College of Dentistry faculty and students deserve a space that allows them to focus on the patient, and the patients deserve a building that puts them at ease,” Landry said.

It’s a simple standard, and a high one: build a place where care feels easier, and learning feels clearer.

In practice, that looks like flexible clinics and classrooms where teams can function smoothly, simulation spaces that shrink the gap between practice and reality, and research areas built for collaboration across disciplines.

“This is a field of science,” Landry said. “I have collaborated with many dentists who are top-notch investigators. Dentistry needs that investigation, and we need dentistry to perform that investigation. The research done here will be transformative and will add to the glory of the institution.”

Garcia put specifics to that call, explaining the tools and technologies we’re investing in to continue leading the global front of dental science and interdisciplinary research.

She said the new simulation lab will connect preclinical, clinical and digital workflows in “one seamless learning ecosystem,” with classrooms that feature advanced educational technologies, including haptic‑enabled tools and virtual reality.

“These investments solidify our position as leaders in dental education, AI and digital dentistry,” she said.

After the dental addition opens, the final phase will carry the same design and modernization into key clinical, research and educational spaces in our current building.

Before the completion of the current Dental Science Building, Garcia said, “we taught, researched and cared for patients in temporary structures scattered all over the UF campus. Despite those humble beginnings, innovation and excellence have always defined us.”

Periodontology resident Adrienne Fetner, D.M.D., traced that through-line in her remarks, connecting her father’s start in UF’s fifth dental class in 1976 to a multigenerational legacy of Gator Dentists that now includes her siblings, spouse and extended family.

“My brothers and I always knew where we wanted to attend dental school, not just because we bleed orange and blue, but because we knew that UF would provide us with the best education possible,” she said.

The Fetners aren’t alone in their Gator Dentist lineage.

“Amazingly, we’re not the only Gator Dentist Family, as we know and work with many other multigenerational Gator Dentists,” she said.

Many in the Fetner family have completed residency training at UFCD following their DMD education, proof that the reach of a Gator Dentist education multiplies when alumni stay engaged with the college and its community.

“Our relationship with UFCD has never waned,” Fetner said. “We’ve all continued to volunteer as courtesy faculty since graduation. We have a close relationship with many specialty departments whose advice and wisdom we have utilized for the best treatment of our patients.”

This building addition will allow UFCD to increase its class size and train more specialists like Fetner and her family, “something Florida urgently needs,” according to Hosseini.

“[We’re building] a future in which more Florida families have access to world-class dental care, a future in which the University of Florida continues to rise, not by accident, but because the state believes in us and invests in us,” he said.

There’s a certain lift and guiding light to this moment in Gator Dentistry. You could feel it at the ceremony; and you can feel it every day in an eager dental student, a committed clinician and a proud alum.

“Our momentum is real,” Garcia said. “The facade behind me is already changing. By 2030, our addition and renovation will set the cornerstone for our next 50 years of excellence and innovation.”

Source: https://dental.ufl.edu/