Higher Education

Kansas State University began building a $45 million facility for the College of Engineering in April of 2014 in Manhattan, Kan. The building is designed by Perkins+Will as the centerpiece and fourth phase of KSU’s engineering complex. Providing teaching and research labs, technology-rich classrooms, offices, and a 250-seat lecture hall, the project includes construction of a 108,600-gsf building and the renovation of the front entrance of Rathbone Hall.

Emory University will break ground in spring of 2014 on a $30 million science building for Oxford College. Designed by EYP Architecture & Engineering and built by Brasfield & Gorrie, the four-story, 57,500-sf facility will provide nine teaching labs for biology, chemistry, physics, and geology; three research labs; three classrooms; an imaging center; and a greenhouse. The building will feature faculty-student research suites on each floor and a central interaction atrium.

Black Hawk College broke ground on the $15 million Health Sciences Center in April of 2014. Located on the Quad-Cities campus in Moline, Ill., the three-story, 46,300-sf facility will provide eight labs, two classrooms, two conference rooms, a 64-seat lecture hall, and faculty offices. The center will accommodate programs in nursing, physical therapy, emergency medical services, surgical technology, veterinary assistance, and health information management. Completion is expected in June of 2015.

The three-story, 90,0000-sf Health Sciences Education building, which houses the School of Medicine at the University of South Carolina Greenville, establishes a new paradigm in health education. Funded entirely by Greenville Health System, the school is designed to fulfill its mission of collaborative learning and “patient-precise personalized care.”

Frostburg State University is building the $66 million Center for Communication and Information Technology in Frostburg, Md. Designed by Ayers Saint Gross of Washington, D.C., the three-story, 127,000-sf facility will provide instructional space for mathematics and computer science as well as housing the mass communications department. The building will also include a 5,500-sf conference room, audio and video studios, and a multimedia learning center with a planetarium, a telescope, and a 3D theater.

Morgan State University is building the $80 million Earl G. Graves Sr. School of Business and Management in Baltimore. The 140,000-sf facility will provide classrooms, a lecture hall, a trading floor, a teaching kitchen, and 10 simulation hotel rooms. The project will support programs in business administration, accounting, finance, marketing, human resources, hospitality management, and information science. Ground was broken on the facility in 2012 and completion is expected in summer of 2015.

The 101,800-gsf, $88.6 million Margaret Murie Building at the University of Alaska Fairbanks is the capstone project of a new life sciences district designed to accommodate a boom in graduate students and research grants in the life sciences. The research and teaching facility, featuring a flexible laboratory design and a new shared-space culture, replaces UAF’s legacy biology facilities with 60 percent overall space efficiency and more than 80 percent year-round utilization of teaching spaces.

Boston-based general contractor BOND has completed construction of a two-phase infrastructure upgrade to Brown University’s Barus & Holley Hall/Prince Laboratory Building in Providence, R.I. Housing the engineering and physics departments, the seven-story, 220,000-sf facility provides 150 offices, 117 labs, 29 teaching labs, 15 classrooms, and three lecture halls. Components of the upgrade included a new fire alarm system, modernized elevators, and replacement of the building’s air handling unit.

San Juan College is constructing a 65,000-sf facility for the School of Energy in Farmington, N.M. The $15 million building will provide specialized laboratories for the study of oil and gas production technologies as well as classrooms and offices. The team for the design/build project includes architectural firm Dekker/Perich/Sabatini and general contractor Jaynes Corporation. Groundbreaking was celebrated in fall of 2013 and completion is expected in May of 2015.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill dedicated the $245 million Marsico Hall in March of 2014. The nine-story, 340,000-sf biomedical imaging facility will support basic and translational research in oncology, nanomedicine, microbiology, immunology, and pharmaceutical engineering. Marisco Hall houses a hybrid MRI/PET whole body scanner, a 7 Tesla MRI whole body scanner, and a cyclotron.

MacEwan University will begin construction in summer of 2014 on the $153 million Centre for Arts and Communications in downtown Edmonton, Alberta. Designed by Bing Thom Architects, the five-story building will provide two theaters, multimedia studios, classrooms, and galleries.

The Energy Innovation Center (EIC) at the University of Wyoming—designed for the UW School of Energy Resources (SER), the Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute (EORI), and the Institute’s nine centers of excellence—focuses on such critical issues as enhanced oil recovery, carbon management, and advanced coal technology. 

North Central College is designing a $60 million facility to replace the 34-year-old Kroehler Science Center. Located in Naperville, Ill., the 120,000-sf, 44-story interdisciplinary building will provide teaching labs, classrooms, and collaborative research space for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programs. The project architect is Holabird & Root of Chicago and the laboratory programming and design consultant is Research Facilities Design (RFD). Occupancy is expected in fall of 2017.

The University of California, San Diego dedicated the $113 million Health Sciences Biomedical Research Facility in March of 2014 in La Jolla, Calif. Designed by ZGF Architects, the 196,000-sf building provides wet bench laboratories, open lab space, lab support, offices, conference rooms, and an interaction atrium. A basement level accommodates core labs and mechanical systems.

Weber State University will begin construction in June of 2014 on the 175,000-sf Tracy Hall Science Center in Ogden, Utah. Supported by $57.4 million in state funding and a $5 million philanthropic contribution, the facility will house all eight departments of the College of Science in a single location. The project design principles spell out the word ‘science’: sustainability, connectedness, inviting, engaging, nature, comfortable, and exploration.