Living & Learning Community

Phoebe’s Living & Learning Community is an innovative project that addresses the critical shortage of nurses that is especially severe in Georgia. Phoebe has become a nationwide leader in healthcare workforce development, and the Living & Learning Community is the centerpiece of Phoebe’s efforts to work with education partners to vastly expand the pipeline of nurses and other healthcare professionals in southwest Georgia. It is also giving our region’s economy a boost and bringing much-needed development to the Jefferson Street corridor leading to downtown Albany. This unique 130,000 square-foot medical education and housing complex opened in August 2024 on the site of a former public school where generations of Albany students were educated.

Preserving History

Many original fixtures and design elements of the old Albany High School, which opened at 1000 North Jefferson Street in 1925, are incorporated into the Phoebe Living & Learning Center. Watch this video and see how we preserved those items and combined them with modern elements to create a striking new building which continues the legacy of learning on this historic site.

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The History of Nursing

Nurses have been the heart and soul of Phoebe since we opened our first hospital at the corner of North Jefferson Street and West 3rd Avenue in 1911. The first floor of the Living & Learning Community, where future nurses are learning the profession, features a beautiful tribute to Phoebe nurses through the decades, painted by accomplished muralist Christopher Johnson.

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Construction Timelapse

We broke ground on The Phoebe Living & Learning Community in January 2023, and it opened to students in August 2024.

It took the skill, dedication and hard work of many to bring this project to fruition. Watch this transformational project come to life.

Preparing Tomorrow’s Nurses

The education space on the first floor of the Phoebe Living & Learning Community includes telehealth-enhanced classrooms, skills labs, meeting rooms, a library, a health career education center and social amenities. In addition to the registered nurse and licensed practical nurse programs, the facility is also home to Albany Technical College’s certified nurse aide and phlebotomy programs.

 

ATC nursing students have the opportunity to live where they learn and train.

The second and third floors of the Living & Learning Community include 80 apartments, as well as common areas to encourage social interaction and collaboration.

There are 50 studio apartments, 26 one-bedroom apartments and four two-bedroom apartments that are all fully furnished.

The Albany Tech Foundation Housing Scholarship and the Phoebe Work Commitment Program provide housing assistance to ensure equal housing opportunities for interested students.

The Living & Learning Community project also included renovations and expansions to the Southwest Campus of the Medical College of Georgia and the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy Southwest Georgia Clinical Campus.

The Living & Learning Community is an outstanding partnership with Albany Technical College, but Phoebe also has vibrant and important relationships with other education institutions throughout Georgia.

Phoebe is a vigorous supporter of our area’s schools, colleges and universities and a proud innovator in healthcare education and training. From funding nursing faculty positions, student scholarships and a summer STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) Academy at Albany State University to encouraging and assisting Fort Valley State University with instituting its first nursing program, Phoebe continues to strengthen vital partnerships with numerous institutions.

Phoebe has a long history of investing in medical innovation with education partners throughout Georgia and beyond.

The Phoebe Family Medicine Residency Program was the first physician residency program in our region and has graduated nearly 170 physicians, the vast majority of whom have started their careers as practicing physicians in Georgia.

The Phoebe Health Science Pathway is an innovative program that is now being replicated throughout Georgia and has gotten national attention. It built on existing partnerships by creating a specialized curriculum that allows students at the Commodore Conyers College & Career (4C) Academy to begin working as certified nursing assistants at Phoebe while still in high school. They have the chance to complete their core college courses through dual enrollment as high school students at no charge so, upon graduation, they can go straight into the nursing program at either Albany State University (ASU) or Albany Technical College.

 

Phoebe also invested more than $5 million to create the Phoebe Simulation and Innovation Center.

The Simulation & Innovation Center is a state-of-the-art training and education lab located at the main campus in Albany. It is an incredible investment in patient safety and workforce development.

Simulation & Innovation Center

This incredible education center not only provides training opportunities for Phoebe employees to ensure they provide safe, quality care to our patients, it is also utilized by high school and college students throughout southwest Georgia.

NSTEP Testimonial

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and nursing students were unable to complete their hands-on clinical training, Phoebe created the innovative Nurse Simulation Training and Education Program (NSTEP) to fill in the gaps for new nurse graduates hired at Phoebe. NSTEP was so successful at making sure new nurses are prepared for the rigors of inpatient care that we made it standard for all our new nurses.