The Munroe-Meyer Institute at the University of Nebraska Medical Center now has a new home near Aksarben Village and University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Scott Campus.

The Munroe-Meyer Institute’s mission is to be a world leader in transforming the lives of all individuals with disabilities and complex health care needs, their families and the community through outreach, engagement, premier educational programs, innovative research and extraordinary patient care.

Located at 6902 Pine St., the institute held a ribbon-cutting ceremony last Tuesday. The building “is a dream literally come true,” said Director Karoly Mirnics.

“With this new building, MMI is positioned as never before to support the intellectual and developmental disability community as it strives for awareness, acceptance and opportunity,” said Mirnics, who added that the facility will fuel a “palpable change” for the intellectual and developmental disability community.

“We created a unique building, the most advanced facility for those families impacted by IDD in the nation,” Mirnics said in a news release. “We wanted to create a new standard in IDD care for families, and we turned to these families – experts in their own right – to discover what they wanted that facility to be.”

UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold called the new building a doorway into the institute’s second century.

“Since its beginning in 1919, Munroe-Meyer Institute has worked to improve the lives of the people and families it serves,” Gold said. “This new home gives it a much larger space and increased versatility and flexibility, but the core of the MMI mission — partnering with those with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families to overcome challenges, to live fuller, richer lives — remains the same.”

The building cost more than $90 million, with funding provided through the State of Nebraska and private gifts to the University of Nebraska Foundation. 

Major contributors included the Weitz Family Foundation, William and Ruth Scott Family Foundation, Suzanne & Walter Scott Foundation, Hattie B. Munroe Foundation, Clarkson Regional Health Services, Holland Foundation, Robert B. Daugherty Foundation and The Lozier Foundation.

The new building is more than double the size of MMI’s former home, providing critical room for growth of existing programs and the development of innovative new ones, ample parking, entrances and a floor plan designed to accommodate the needs of the individuals MMI serves.