Biomedical

The Medical Research Council has selected HBG to build the £197 million Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in the United Kingdom. Designed by RMJM, the 32,500-sm laboratory will be supported by over 780 structural piles to mitigate vibration and will include an underground heat recovery pipe system. A 4,600-sm energy center will also be built. Construction will begin by year-end 2008 with completion expected in early 2012. The construction cost for the laboratory is £140 million.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded San Francisco-based URS Corp. a $90 million contract to design and build two medical instruction facilities at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. As part of the Medical Education and Training Campus (METC), the buildings will provide training for military personnel in radiology, pharmacy, nuclear medicine, biomedical equipment technology, and dentistry.

Johns Hopkins is building the Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children's Center in Baltimore. The 12-story pediatric hospital tower is slated for occupancy in early 2011. Featuring 205 private inpatient rooms, the facility will include an intensive care unit, a neonatal ICU, ten surgical suites, pediatric radiology, and a ten-bed translational research unit. The project architect is Perkins + Will.

The University of Toronto at Mississauga will break ground in fall of 2008 on the four-story New Medical Academy Building. Two-thirds of the facility will house instructional and administrative space with one-third housing research labs and faculty offices. The $36 million health sciences complex will include classrooms and laboratories for chemistry, forensics, psychology, molecular biology, and biomedical research. The project manager is PMX Inc. Completion is slated for August of 2010.

The University of California, Santa Barbara is renovating 10,337-sf in its Biological Sciences 2 Facility to house the Center for Stem Cell Biology and Engineering. The $6.3 million project is funded by $3.2 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. The collaborative stem cell research facility will include a core laboratory with a high throughput sequencing apparatus, offices, conference rooms, and support.

The University of Alabama’s $64 million Science and Engineering Complex in Birmingham is slated for completion in July of 2009. Built by B.L. Harbert International, the three-story project is comprised of 235,000-sf teaching and research facilities, including a BSL-3 laboratory. Davis Architects of Birmingham are the project design consultants. The facility will house classrooms and laboratories for biology and chemistry and includes the expansion of an existing energy plant and relocation of cooling towers.

The University of Central Florida College of Medicine initiated construction on a 168,000-sf instructional facility in Orlando in June of 2008. Housing classrooms, anatomy and simulation labs, and a medical library, the project is slated for completion in March of 2010. The building is sited adjacent to the 198,000-sf Burnett Biomedical Sciences building currently under construction. The Burnett Building, which will house research laboratories and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Institute, is expected to reach completion by May of 2009.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center celebrated the opening of the $110 million Medical Research Building IV in Nashville on June 17, 2008. The 200,000-sf facility houses 86 laboratory modules and is built atop two existing buildings. Three research floors are sited above Light Hall, with five research floors and two vivarium floors above the newly renovated $5.5 million, 1,106-seat Langford Auditorium. The project was designed by Don Blair and Associates with Davis Brody Architects.

The University of California, Irvine will initiate construction in fall of 2008 on the $60.5 million Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center. Funded by an award of $27.2 million in May of 2008 from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the 61,575-sf facility will house up to 26 researchers and is slated for completion in July of 2010. The three-story building will include a core stem cell lab, cell culture facilities, imaging, clinical space, and biotechnology training facilities.

The University of New Mexico is partnering with the city of Rio Rancho and developer Legacy Hospital Partners to construct a full service teaching hospital in Rio Rancho, N.M. The 75-bed facility will support medical education and nursing programs and is designed for ease of expansion to a total of 125 beds. Housing a 24-hour emergency room, cancer center, critical care unit, intensive care unit, and medical offices, the project will be built with sustainable design technologies. The project cost is estimated at between $100 million and $150 million.

Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin is constructing a 425,000-sf patient tower in Wauwatosa. The 12-story facility will increase bed count from 236 to 294, with the ability to add an additional 72 beds in the future. Completion is slated for 2009. Children’s is also partnering with the Medical College of Wisconsin to construct a 298,000-sf, $140 million translational research facility.

The National Institutes of Health awarded Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI) a $20 million Clinical and Translational Science Award in June of 2008. STSI is a collaboration between The Scripps Research Institute and Scripps Health in partnership with other San Diego institutions. The award will support biomedical research in genomics, stem cells, and applications of wireless technology.

The University of Pennsylvania is planning to construct the $370 million Anne and Jerome Fisher Translational Research Center in Philadelphia. Housing labs and offices for 100 researchers and 900 staff, the 400,000-sf collaborative research facility is being designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects PC. The eight-story project is slated for completion in 2010.

Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine opened the Northwestern Nikon Imaging Center in Chicago on June 4, 2008. The collaborative core microscopy imaging facility was developed in partnership with Nikon Instruments to support biomedical research and the development of advanced imaging technologies. The Feinberg School's Cell Imaging Center will feature Nikon Live Scan Swept Field Confocal microscopes for the study of live cell events.

The National Institutes of Health will occupy the new completed Biomedical Research Center in Baltimore in August of 2008. The 500,000-sf laboratory building will accommodate biomedical research on conditions including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, aging, diabetes, and addiction. The $278 million facility has been undergoing vibration testing and mitigation since its completion in late 2006.