Government

The Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory is partnering with the University of Houston to create the Texas-NREL Large Blade Research and Test Facility (LBR&TF) in Ingleside, Texas. The facility will be designed, built, and operated by the University of Houston with operational support including $2 million in equipment from NREL. Completion is slated for 2010. The project will provide complete testing of wind turbine blades up to 210 feet long.

The State of New York has selected Swanke Hayden Connell Architects (SHCA) in conjunction with Cameron Engineering to design the new $190 million New York State Center of Innovation and Excellence in Homeland Security in Bethpage, N.Y.  The center will foster the development, evaluation, and deployment of national and state security solutions through applied science.

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.

The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) dedicated the $22.7 million National Cold Water Marine Aquaculture Center (NCWMAC) in Franklin, Maine, in late May of 2008. Housing laboratory, office, and tank space to support 14 scientists and 45 staff, the 44,000-sf facility will foster the development of technologies for sustainable and profitable seafood production.

The National Interagency Biodefense Campus (NIBC) has completed construction of a $100 million central utility plant at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland. The project provides continuous steam, chilled water, electricity, and standby emergency power for NIBC's biocontainment laboratories. The plant is operated by Chevron Energy Solutions who also designed and built the facility.

Cornell University broke ground on the $80 million New York State Animal Health Diagnostic Center in Ithaca in May of 2008. Slated for completion in late summer of 2010, the 126,000-gsf facility will house over 200 researchers, consolidating operations currently dispersed in 12 locations. The three-story building will house BSL-2 and BSL-3 labs, diagnostic labs, wet labs, and a state-of-the-art necropsy facility able to accommodate large animals.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is constructing the 54,423-sf Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) on 15 acres in Pittsfield Township near Ann Arbor, Mich. The single-story facility, which will double the footprint of the existing Traver Village laboratory, broke ground in fall of 2007 and is slated for completion in late 2008. The GLERL will support research on water levels, invasive species, drinking water, and recreational and commercial opportunities.

Jacobs Engineering Group was selected by the Office of Property Management for the District of Columbia government to provide project development and construction support for the new Consolidated Forensics Laboratory in Washington, D.C. The $218 million project includes 240,000-gsf of laboratory, support, and amenity space.

The Department of Defense broke ground on the $92 million Joint Center of Excellence for Battlefield Health and Trauma Research at Fort Sam Houston in Texas in January of 2008. Accommodating combat casualty care and trauma research missions, the 150,000-sf project is part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) initiative. Slated for completion in September of 2009, the research center will be collocated with the Institute of Surgical Research, which will receive a 5,000-sf renovation.

Aurora, Colo.-based Merrick & Company received an engineering excellence award in December of 2007 from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Colorado. Merrick was recognized with a Building/Technology Systems Award for work on the BSL-3Ag Large Animal Health Facility project in Ames, Iowa. Merrick provided detailed architectural and engineering design services for one of the initial elements of the $460 million modernization of the USDA National Centers for Animal Health.

The National Park Service opened the $4.4 million Twin Creeks Science and Education Center in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in fall of 2007. The 15,000-sf facility houses research for the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI), a project documenting the 800-square-mile Park’s estimated 100,000 species of living organisms. Designed by Lord, Aeck & Sargent, the facility is seeking LEED Silver certification for sustainable design.

Situated as the symbolic heart of a newly transformed three million-sf research and administrative campus, the General Service Administration’s (GSA) and US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) new Central Shared Use Building was recognized by two leading professional societies in the Mid-Atlantic region.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has attained a LEED Gold certification for Building 110 in Atlanta. The first high performance federal government laboratory to attain LEED Gold, the facility shows an upfront cost savings of $847,000 due to flexible lab and office design. Inclusion of interstitial floors eliminated the need to build an entire additional floor. Annual savings generated by the facility include $400,000 from ease of laboratory reconfiguration; $175,000 from energy savings; and $500,000 from productivity gains due to a healthy workplace.

The U.S. Senate passed the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs 2008 spending bill in September of 2007. Providing over $963 million for military facility projects in Maryland, the bill will fund a two-stage expansion of the existing U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) laboratory. The completed $1-billion facility will be comprised of 1.1 million sf and will accommodate 1,300 employees. The first phase of the project will reach completion in 2012 with the second phase culminating in 2016.

The National Institutes of Health has awarded the University of Wisconsin-Madison $41 million over five years to support research at UW's Institute for Clinical and Translational Research. The funding, a Clinical and Translational Science Award, is one of the largest ever received by the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. The award will support the application of biomedical research to clinical treatment.