Tulane University School of Medicine announced plans to build The Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine within the ReFresh Project, a redevelopment of the former Schwegmann Bros. store that will provide Broad Street area residents a large-scale fresh food outlet for the first time since Hurricane Katrina. The 4,600-square-foot Goldring Center will feature a teaching kitchen - the first affiliated with a medical school. It will include professional ovens and cooking stations for medical students, physicians-in-training, chefs, doctors and members of the community to learn the tenets of healthful cooking and the significant role food plays in preventing and managing obesity and associated diseases. The center's teaching kitchen will be open to the public throughout the year, offering free demonstrations and cooking classes taught by staff and medical students as well as continuing medical education programs for physicians. The center will also conduct nutrition research. Plans call for construction to begin this summer with opening scheduled for January 2014. The project is part of Tulane's groundbreaking culinary medicine program and collaboration with Johnson & Wales University College of Culinary Arts, the first joint training program by a medical school and major culinary institute. In its first year, the two schools have hosted joint internship programs, created elective curriculum for chefs and doctors and developed healthful cooking classes for community members in New Orleans. In the past academic year, Tulane medical students have taught more than 100 cooking classes at area community centers and logged more than 6,000 hours of service work in culinary initiatives.