HASTINGS, Neb. (AP) _ Construction will soon begin on the $8.5 million Jackson Dinsdale Art Center at Hastings College, expected to open in August 2016.

The building will be the new home of the college’s art department, where Jackson Dinsdale studied, The Grand Island Independent reported (http://bit.ly/1brHWbG ) Saturday.

Dinsdale died last year at age 21 after an accident in St. Paul. The building was announced in November and will be funded primarily by a $5 million donation from Dinsdale’s parents, Kim and Tom Dinsdale.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the center was held Friday and included the parents and Hastings College officials and professors.

“I know Jackson’s so excited,” Kim Dinsdale said Friday. “I could just feel him here with everybody today.”

The new building will include studios for glass blowing, making sculptures, painting, printmaking and ceramics, as well as individual studio space, critique rooms, classrooms and gallery space.

The new building should be a huge improvement from the department’s current space, an old library that’s housed the art department for 50 years, said Hastings College Art Department Chairman Turner McGehee.

Hastings College President Don Jackson said trees have been cleared from the site, where construction will begin soon.