The $60-million BRC, located at the Health Science Center on the University's campus in Oklahoma City, consists of two adjoining buildings totaling 227,400 sf. BRC North, at 105,000 sf, was completed in September 1997, and the 122,000-sf BRC West was completed in June 2005.

The first floor of BRC North features an auditorium, large conference room, a BSL-3 lab, and mechanical space. A main lobby is accessible by both buildings that comprise the research center. Floors two through four of BRC North feature a generic design. Elements include a two-corridor racetrack design, windows in the outbound labs and the PI offices, in-bound lab support with cross-corridor connections, ghost corridors and embedded offices within the labs, areas for interaction and collaboration, and plenty of natural light.

Principal investigators have access to 2,400 sf of work space, which can accommodate 12 laboratory workers, junior faculty, and the PI. A typical lab is 900 sf with a planning module of 10' 6" x 28' 6". A PI's office is 10' 6" x 16'. BRC North houses 180 employees. Additional features include a core lab, a bioinformatics area, and a vivarium. The core lab has equipment carts and overhead utility carriers with quick disconnect utility outlets and DNA sequencing. Common glasswash rooms and sterilizers are located on every floor.

In BRC West, the first floor includes office space, an 8,000-sf core lab with support space, and mechanical space. The research lab was increased to 954 sf by moving the interior walls to the corridor columns, by providing each PI with one storage closet, and by reducing the size of the mechanical rooms. The lab planning module increase to 10' 6" x 30' 3". BRC West is home to 210 employees.

Additional amenities include in-lab lab support, increased glass storage, under-counter glass washers, and card access at every exterior door. The research labs are equipped with mobile casework, six tech stations with electrical and data outlets, and islands with no cup sinks. There are three analytical instrumentation rooms per floor, bioinformatics rooms on two floors, and two tissue culture rooms with biosafety cabinets and incubators on each floor. Conference rooms have large tables, blackout blinds, video projectors, and whiteboards. A flow and image cytometry core lab on the third floor includes high-speed cell sorters, confocal and inverted microscopes, and a bench-top flow cytometer.

The 23,000-sf vivarium is a $6.2-million barrier mouse facility with 72 ventilated cage racks (6,900 cages) that have a capacity to house 20,000 mice. A series of vestibules separates the barrier and non-barrier areas. The BSL-3 holding rooms and all holding suites are equipped with an automatic watering system and a thimble connection for exhaust from ventilated cage racks. There is one large quarantine area. The vivarium air handler is designed for 100 percent redundancy and a standby generator is available in the event of a power failure.

To the north of the building is a landscaped garden, viewable from a courtyard outside the BRC foyers and the gallery hallway running east/west along the core lab on the first floor.

Project Information
Building Owner:		University of Oklahoma
Building Location:		Oklahoma City, Oklahoma UNITED STATES
Project Type:		New Construction
Principal Building Function:		Biomedical research laboratories
Project Delivery Method:		General Contractor
Project Timeline		Dec 1990 Planning Start Design Start Jun 2005 Completion Last known status: Completed
Project Cost:		$59,800,000
Construction Cost:		$45,800,000
Cost Per Sq. Ft:		$263
		About These Cost Figures
Building Information
Project Includes:		Auditorium Biology Biomedical Education: Biomedical Education: Faculty Office Education: Nursing Genomics Healthcare: Medical School Laboratory Laboratory: Biomedical Research Laboratory: Research Research: Biomedical Vivarium
Total GSF:		227,400
Building Population:		390
Project Team
Engineer - MEP		Affiliated Engineers Inc. (AEI)
Supplier - Biosafety Cabinets		NUAIRE Inc.
Profile Created 02/22/2006
Last Updated 04/04/2006
About the Reported Cost Figures The cost figures reported are supplied by the firms that submitted these projects for publication, which in most cases are the designers or builders. Whereas these sources are intimately familiar with their projects, they may not be fully aware of the owners' finally-realized and recorded costs. In some cases, costs are truly and completely accounted for, and in others they represent a near approximation of the final costs. Costs have not been adjusted for year of construction, nor has any attempt been made to make regional cost adjustments. Further, costs are not comparable on any kind of detailed standard costing model. Hence, it is possible for the cost of one building to include a steam boiler, while the cost of a comparable building might not include the boiler, if steam is being supplied from an already existing campus grid. Or, in another case, a building might include excess boiler capacity to supply steam to another building. Some submittals include fees or unusual site improvements as part of the construction costs, which others do not.