Construction Cost

The University of Hawaii at Manoa is building a $50 million life sciences facility in Honolulu. Designed to promote interdisciplinary collaboration, the three-story, 45,000-sf project will provide the College of Natural Sciences with classrooms, teaching and research laboratories, lab support spaces, and offices. Accommodating the departments of biology, microbiology, and botany, the building will also house the Pacific Biosciences Research Center and the Biological Electron Microscope Facility.

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation is planning to build a $33 million R&D facility for the creation of technologies for Zero Energy Buildings (ZEB) in Kamakura, Japan. The project will accelerate the company’s development, evaluation, and demonstration of ZEB technologies to meet the growing demand for buildings that combine comfort and superior energy savings. Mitsubishi Electric’s ZEB technologies are part of the company’s wide-ranging effort to help achieve the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Ryerson University opened the Centre for Urban Innovation in January of 2018 in Toronto. Designed by Moriyama & Teshima and ERA Architects, the CAD$46 million project included the renovation and expansion of an existing structure to create a 40,000-sf facility providing wet and dry research labs, fabrication suites, a maker space, and offices for business incubation and commercialization.

Weber State University opened the renovated Lindquist Hall in December of 2018 in Ogden, Utah. Designed by GSBS Architects, the four-story, 119,322-sf facility provides five labs, 34 classrooms, a 150-seat lecture hall, a computer lab, a testing center, study spaces, and 72 offices for the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences. Lindquist Hall also houses the Olene S. Walker Institute of Politics & Public Service and the Richard Richards Institute for Ethics.

Oregon Health & Science University opened the $190 Knight Cancer Institute in September of 2018 on the South Waterfront Campus in Portland. Designed by SRG Partnership to foster multidisciplinary collaboration, the seven-story, 320,000-sf facility provides biomedical laboratories, administrative offices, interaction hubs, core labs, a 200-seat auditorium, and space for clinical trials. Featuring an integrated balance of wet and dry research spaces, the building accommodates programs in computational biology, early cancer detection, and immuno-oncology.

Vermeulens has released its market outlook report for the second quarter of 2018. Key points include:

Construction price escalation nationally has trended to 4 percent per annum for the second quarter of 2018. Due to consistent increases in construction costs over the past few years, the long-term trend for the Vermeulens Index is up to 3.4 percent from 3.3 percent.  

Determining whether to build a new STEM facility or to renovate an existing building requires weighing multiple factors: budget, project cost and duration, whether the current building has “good bones,” availability of swing space, how the building fits into a strategic plan, and historic and cultural considerations, not to mention project-specific items like the need for a vivarium or maker space or even the requirement to work around a historic Cherokee earthen mound.

Built On Vision released a cloud-based construction schedule calculation engine in August of 2018. The project management software utilizes a proprietary smart algorithm that resolves a problem of similar applications related to imprecise time unit measurements. Instead of using only the hour or the day as the calculation base, Built On Vision allows users the ability to shape schedule unit fraction behavior so that event sequences can be accurately understood and planned for, enabling greater project delivery optimization, as well as legal defensibility.

The University of Toronto opened the Myhal Centre for Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship in September of 2018. Designed by Montgomery Sisam Architects and Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, the CAD$200 million project features a four-story atrium, TEAL classrooms for technology-enhanced active learning, design studios, fabrication and prototyping facilities, and a 468-seat auditorium.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals opened a 170,000-sf R&D facility in San Diego in June of 2018. Although over 70 percent of the Torrey Pines center is dedicated to research, the project also features a 4,000-sf business incubator suite and a 1,500-sf learning lab for STEAM programs in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. Alexandria Real Estate Equities oversaw construction of the leased site, which has attained LEED Gold sustainable design certification.

UpCodes released a software plugin in June of 2018 that checks BIM models for code compliance errors. UpCodes AI allows code errors to be viewed in real time in Revit, enabling project timelines to be accelerated through shortened internal code review and the creation of more accurate drawings, thus reducing the number of revision cycles before approval. Regulations are sourced directly from municipalities in 27 states and are updated continuously. UpCodes is based in San Francisco. 

The Pennsylvania State University celebrated the opening of the 93,500-sf Agricultural Engineering Building in June of 2018 in University Park. The $44 million project included a 16,000-sf renovation of the historical front section of the structure, demolition of the remainder of the building, and approximately 77,000 sf of new construction.

NYU Langone Health opened the Helen L. & Martin S. Kimmel Pavilion and the Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital in June of 2018 in New York. The 21-story, 830,000-sf Kimmel Pavilion provides 374 private patient rooms, 30 surgical rooms, a conference center, and an outdoor roof terrace. The facility offers acute and critical care services in neuroscience, hematology–oncology, cardiothoracic care, and bone marrow and solid organ transplantation.

Global Switch, a leading owner and operator of advanced data centers in Europe and Asia-Pacific, will implement modular construction methodologies in the delivery of its $209 million Singapore Woodlands facility. Gammon Construction, a joint venture of Balfour Beatty and Jardine Matheson, will precast 70 percent of the structure offsite, as well as using Building Information Modeling (BIM) in the delivery of the project.

Vermeulens has released its market outlook report for the first quarter of 2018. Key points include: