Industry News

The University of Missouri-St. Louis has opened the new $52-million Blanch M. Touhill Performing Arts Center. The 123,000-sf facility houses the 1,625 Anheuser Busch Performance Hall and the 300-seat E. Desmond and Mary Ann Lee Theatre. Designed by Pei-Cobb Freed & Partners with the acoustic firm of Kirkegaard Associates, the center accommodates dressing rooms, performer lounges, two box offices, and a 42 x 54 ft rehearsal room. The center, which has a $6-million operating budget, will be used by both the university and the performing arts community.

Webster University opened its new $21-million Emerson Library on July 1, 2003. The 71,500-sf, five-floor facility accommodates 750 data ports, 20 small-group study rooms, a 100-person lecture room, an electronic classroom, and a 25-computer cyber café. The facility is Webster's only U.S. library; all other Webster campuses can access the library's materials in computer labs. Contractor Paric Corp. broke ground on the project in 2001. The library was designed by architectural firm Perry, Dean, Rogers & Partners of Boston.  

Yale School of Medicine’s Biomedical Research and Teaching Facility, known as 300 Cedar Street, is designed to maximize collaboration between basic and clinical scientific disciplines. Designed by Payette Associates, the 450,000-gsf project was dedicated on the New Haven, Ct.,campus in May 2003. A six-story, 350,000-gsf wing supports flexible laboratories for 700 scientists focused on disease-related research. A four-story, 100,000-gsf wing supports medical education including the school’s new gross anatomy and histology teaching laboratories for medical and physician associate students.

Washington University School of Medicine recently completed the $5-million renovation of the fifth floor of the McDonnell Medical Sciences Building. The 30,000-sf project involved gutting the existing floor and constructing new offices, laboratories, cold rooms, microscope rooms, and tissue culture rooms for the departments of molecular oncology and cell biology. The renovation also included the creation of a BSL-3 laboratory. The project contractor was Tarlton Corp. of St. Louis.

Sanford-Brown College is developing a $3.6-million educational facility in the Eastport Plaza Business Park in Collinsville, Ill. Sited on six acres, the facility will enable the college to more than double its current 263-student enrollment at the campus. Housing classrooms, teacher and administrator offices, medical and computer labs, a bookstore, and a library, the facility will feature state-of-the-art wireless technology. Project contractor Impact Strategies is initiating construction in September 2003 with completion expected in April 2004. The facility was designed by Arcturis Inc.