Colorado State University has selected Heath Construction to build the $6.75 million third phase of Colorado State University's Bioenvironmental Research Building. The 21,700-sf, three-story addition to the existing Bioenvironmental Research Building is scheduled for completion in late 2008. The expansion will house research programs on infectious diseases and an array of mechanical and technical systems.
The University of Florida College of Medicine will break ground in September 2008 on the 90,000-sf Veterinary Education and Clinical Research Center in Gainesville, Fla. A design firm for the $58-million project, which will include an expansion of the University’s small animal hospital, will be selected in fall of 2007. The new three-story animal hospital will triple the existing facility’s footprint. The first floor will house examination rooms, waiting areas, an ICU, imaging, and a pharmacy.
The University of Virginia is constructing the 85,000-sf Advanced Research and Technology (ART) building in Charlottesville. Sited in the Fontaine Research Park, the four story facility is comprised of three floors above grade and an underground basement. It will contain wet and dry lab space, a vivarium, two MRI rooms and one small animal MRI room, environmental rooms, office space, and conference areas. The 22-month project is slated for completion in March of 2008.
The House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing in early October of 2007 to evaluate the safety and security issues of biocontainment and infectious disease research facilities. Prompted in part by the June 15, 2007 power failure at the CDC’s new $214 million laboratory in Atlanta, the session will investigate recent releases and incidents at high containment sites.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology directorate is exploring possible sites for its proposed $500 million National Bio and Agro Defense Facility (NBAF). Locations include Flora, Miss.; Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan.; Texas Research Park in San Antonio; Umstead Research Farm, N.C.; the University of Georgia in Athens; and Plum Island, N.Y., the location of the existing BSL-3 Animal Disease Center which the NBAF will replace.
Oakwood Research Facility, a breeder of pathogen-free rabbits for medical research, received approval in July of 2007 to construct a rabbit facility in Attica Township, Michigan. The planned facility will be comprised of three 8,000-sf pathogen-free barns. Oakwood Research provides rabbits to the Indiana-based lab animal distributor Harlan Sprague Dawley, whose clients include the University of Michigan Ann Arbor Medical School, Michigan State University, The Cleveland Clinic, and Duke University.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture dedicated its high containment large animal facility in Ames, Iowa in July of 2007. As the second component of a multi-phase, $460 million project, the state-of-the-art animal health center will accommodate research on a variety of endemic, zoonotic and foreign animal diseases. Housing BSL-3 laboratories, the facility was constructed in three and a half years and cost approximately $85 million. The new building contains more than 155,000 sf and will house cattle, bison, elk, deer, reindeer, sheep and hogs.
UC Davis completed construction of the 125,000-sf Veterinary Medicine III A building in summer of 2007. The $77 million facility houses classrooms and research space to enable consolidation of the School of Veterinary Medicine in a single location. The project began construction in March of 2002 and was publicly funded.
The Centre for Phenogenomics completed its $50-million facility in the Lebovic Research Centre in Toronto in mid-2007. The 120,000-sf, 180,000-mouse facility houses research laboratories for the study of physiological phenotyping, generation of mutant mice, behavioral analysis, imaging, pathology, and cryopreservation. The project team included engineering firms LKM and SNC-Lavalin Engineering & Technology.
Cornell University celebrated the opening of the 79,000-square-foot East Campus Research Facility (ECRF) on June 26, 2007. Housing approximately 45,000 mice, including transgenic strains, the $55-million building will also accommodate rats, woodchucks, guinea pigs, hamsters, and chickens. Part of Cornell's $600-million New Life Sciences Initiative, the consolidated animal research facility was five years in the making and is expected to be fully operational in fall of 2007. The project was designed by Philadelphia-based Ballinger.
Covance is constructing a 300,000-sf animal testing laboratory in Chandler, Arizona. The facility broke ground in June of 2007 and is slated to begin operations in early 2009. Construction was temporarily halted by a lawsuit which called into question the building permit and zoning for the facility due to alleged non-public meetings between the City of Chandler and Covance. The case was dismissed in February of 2008, allowing construction to resume.
The long-awatited 5th edition of the Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories (BMBL) guide is now online on the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at www.cdc.gov/od/ohs/biosfty/bmbl5/bmbl5toc.htm .
UC Davis is proposing to construct five new buildings at the California National Primate Research Center in Davis, Calif. A $5.3-million, 10,000-sf building would accommodate virology and immunology research and would include a 1,100-sf BSL-3 laboratory. Four additional modular buildings would have a footprint of approximately 1,500 sf each, two comprised of laboratory space and two housing office space. Each of the modular buildings would cost approximately $800,000.
Iowa State University (ISU) began construction in late 2006 on the first phase of a $51-million renovation of its Veterinary Diagnostics Laboratory and Veterinary Teaching Hospital. The project includes renovations to the existing 100,000-sf facility and a 55,000-sf addition housing an advanced imaging facility with improved biocontainment capabilities. The second project phase entails renovations of a vacant small animal facility to enable future expansion. Both phases are expected to reach completion in late 2009.
The University of Saskatchewan has begun construction on the $110 million International Vaccine Center (InterVac) in Saskatoon. Designed by Smith Carter of Winnipeg, the 165,000-sf facility will include large animal testing facilities and BSL-3 containment laboratories for infectious disease and vaccine research.
