Planning started in 1998 for the 220,000-sf Medical Biomolecular Research Building, which was occupied in March 2003. Following excavation for the foundation of the building, an unexpected turn of events altered the course of the project and led to additional improvements in the School of Medicine.

Robert Marriott, Jr., associate dean at the School of Medicine on the University's Chapel Hill campus, says the passage of a $3.2-billion state bond issue for higher education provided the School of Medicine with more than $100 million to renovate its older laboratory buildings.

"Having this opportunity delivered to us while we were in the midst of constructing an open-plan building worked to our benefit in terms of changing the property lines of what departments thought was their territory, putting new scientists adjacent to people they were not used to collaborating with, and letting medical students see the researchers working in their labs," says Marriott. "It has been a great experience for us."

Modifying Plans to Account for Future Growth

Receiving money from the bond issue prompted University officials to modify the design of the new research building by adding an additional floor, making it a 10-story facility. The open-design building features two floors of research support and eight floors of laboratory space.

The open plan, which provides flexible lab space that can be altered to suit future needs, was requested by researchers who offered input during the design phase of the project. The same layout was used on each of the eight floors of the lab tower. The labs were initially designed with the capability of having a wall and a door to separate each 560-sf module, but the majority of the occupants opted not to have the walls installed. Today, each floor includes 2,500-sf open lab suites with access to all utilities from the hallway.

Technician work areas are situated near the large windows, while principal research offices are located on the corners of each floor. The work areas have short wet benches with the sink at the end. An alcove is available for a four-foot chemical fume hood, but many researchers are using the space to store files or an additional piece of equipment.

Every floor also includes conference space and a 180-sf specialty room with workstations for the lab technicians. The specialty rooms are separated from the wet bench areas in terms of utilities, ventilation, and safety considerations. Individuals doing computations have a safe place to work with a reduced chance of knocking an item off the casework.

Also included on each floor are two cold rooms, a warm room, and a shared microscopy facility.

"The labs are doing a good balance of medical research that includes a lot of quantitative work, so we've included plenty of places where researchers can work on computers," says Marriott.

The building, which cost $55 million to design and construct, has a 500-seat auditorium and a 200-seat auditorium for use during public events. The auditoriums are situated next to the lab tower with a shared lobby.

"The concern about public access into lab areas became more focused after Sept. 11," says Marriott. "As a result of the shared public space, we had to make adjustments by installing card access in the elevators to control who gets into the labs. We put card access on the exit doors, too, so people can't come in one of the exit doors. It's all part of providing better security."

Public spaces in the lab tower are used as classrooms for medical students in their first and second year of education at the University's School of Medicine. This is an example of how the open floor plan of the building allowed the University to use the facility for a variety of purposes.

Making Room for Major Renovation

Passage of the bond issue gave the University the necessary money to renovate other buildings. However, the buildings were completely occupied and could not be renovated until the researchers and office workers were moved to other locations. The logical answer was to use the Medical Biomolecular Research Building to house the occupants of the other buildings that were being renovated. Midway through the construction process, the new building was assigned as swing space for three years while other lab buildings on campus were renovated.

"We went to a whole new plan of emptying other buildings into this one," says Marriott. "It only worked because this building was not so specialized and customized such that we could actually make the adjustment. Now, we have surgeons, pediatricians, cardiologists, infectious disease researchers, and orthopedists using four of the eight lab floors along with genetics, cell biology, and molecular physiology."

Having researchers from varying fields working in close proximity to each other has allowed them to collaborate on new ideas, which has resulted in new grant proposals.

After the Medical Biomolecular Research Building was completed, the School of Medicine spent approximately $200,000 to fine tune the labs for the specific researchers who are using them while their old facilities are being renovated. The enhancements included making slight alterations, such as removing casework in a certain area and changing the air-handling system in another lab.

The swing space in the new building enabled the School of Medicine to gut the Medical Sciences Research Building and the Burnett-Womack Research Building. A 40,000-sf addition is being constructed at the Medical Sciences Research Building, which houses offices and classrooms, and the name will be changed to the School of Medicine Building. The $25-million renovation to this building is slated for completion in the spring of 2005.

The Burnett-Womack Research Building, used primarily for clinically based research and offices, is being completely rewired. The cost for renovation, set for completion in August 2005, is $31 million.

The Berryhill Medical Education Building is using $13-million of the bond issue to replace various mechanical systems. When the Medical Sciences Research Building is reopened, it will house the current occupants of the Berryhill facility while the renovation takes place. Renovation at the Berryhill building is expected to be completed in the spring of 2007.

The bond issue is also financing two additional buildings currently being designed: a clinical faculty office building being constructed as part of the new $180-million cancer hospital set to open in 2009, and a 225,000-sf genetic medicine building is scheduled for completion in December 2007 at a cost of $77 million.

The Bioinformatics Building, a new $29-million office facility that opened in December 2002, currently houses about 500 office employees who previously worked throughout the School of Medicine. Rearranging employees during the renovation process is coinciding with the School of Medicine's relatively new method of assigning space based on need rather than entitlement.

Assigning Space Based on Need

Several years ago when the School of Medicine began creating new departments, like genetics, there was not enough space to house them. Most of the available space had been given as an entitlement to other departments.

"The department chairs recognized that without the ability to provide space, the school would not be able to recruit top-flight researchers so they asked the dean to rework how space is assigned," says Marriott. "We are now engaged in a three-year process of reassigning space based on need. When space is assigned based on birthright, departments are reluctant to give it up because they are responsible for maintaining it."

Some of the larger departments were holding currently unused space in case they needed it in the future. As a result, there was a substantial amount of unused space.

The School of Medicine's software system of tracking space was rewritten with a link to AutoCAD to produce color diagrams showing the areas assigned to each researcher. The diagrams list the buildings, room numbers, and square footage in each room that is assigned to a particular faculty member.

The University's financial reporting system shows which researchers are currently spending grant money, how much of the funds are still available, and when the grant expires. A separate freestanding system keeps track of pending grants for which researchers have applied and how the funds would be used.

"We get a good idea of how much space people really need and each building has now become a blank canvas for us," notes Marriott. "We are trying to put people into the buildings based on how much space they need and what their proximity opportunities are, rather than territorial imperatives. All of this was possible because the Medical Biomolecular Research Building offered a flexible plan that gave us a way to address these needs."

By Tracy Carbasho

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