The University of Otago has spent $5.5 million on land next to Christchurch Hospital as it seeks to "consolidate" its operations in the city.
The site at 16-24 Oxford Tce, close to the city centre, was formerly occupied by Tillmans Fine Furniture. Its building was badly damaged in the February 2011 earthquake and has been demolished.
The university's Christchurch campus is used by the medical school for teaching and health research.
Property services director Barry MacKay said the land became available because of the earthquake and was bought in March.
He said "preliminary scoping work" on what would be built on the site would begin within the next six weeks.
Work on the new facility would not start for at least 18 months.
Mr MacKay said the site met the aims identified in the campus master plan for "development potential" of the university's Christchurch operations.
"It will allow a consolidation of the university's operations that are currently run out of leased buildings," he said.
Before buying the site, the university did not own any significant land in Christchurch.
The acquisition comes as the university is still spending "significant sums" repairing its Christchurch campus buildings damaged in last year's quake - many of which were still deemed to unsafe to be occupied.
The main school of medicine building was expected to be fully reopened in the second half of this year.
Up until March this year, the university had spent $870,000 on the rebuild of the Christchurch campus, "much" of which would be recovered through insurance, the university's financial review for the period up until the end of March said.
