Ground Breaking

HITT Contracting broke ground in January of 2025 on the company's new headquarters in Falls Church, Va. Designed by Gensler, the 270,000-sf facility is envisioned as a nationally recognized innovation hub for the advancement of building practices that will shape the future of the industry. The project involves the transformation of an existing office structure, previously a satellite campus operated by Virginia Tech, into a collaborative educational center for the built environment.

Western Washington University opened Kaiser Borsari Hall in Bellingham in December of 2024. Designed by Perkins&Will, the $73.6 million building offers dynamic settings for growing programs in computer science, electrical engineering, and energy science and technology. Active learning classrooms foster student interaction and discovery, accompanied by teaching and research labs, breakout areas, a multicultural student lounge, and a collaborative commons.

The University of Sheffield's Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre finished construction in November of 2024 on an open-access innovation facility for aerospace R&D in the United Kingdom. Expanding the capabilities of the adjacent Factory 2050, the 29,700-sf structure will initially house the Composites at Speed and Scale (COMPASS) initiative. An expansive factory environment will enable academic, government, and industry partners to work side-by-side, complemented by individual workshops and ancillary spaces.

Allentown, a premier provider of animal housing solutions, is partnering with The Jackson Laboratory (JAX) to launch a revolutionary home-cage mouse monitoring system powered by AI and machine learning (ML). This strategic collaboration is designed to accelerate preclinical research and improve the translatability of preclinical readouts to clinical applications.

Ground was broken in October of 2024 on WORKBENCH, a sustainable office building in Austin, Texas. Designed by Dick Clark + Associates (DC+A) and built by Swinerton, the 50,000-sf facility will serve as a showcase for the utilization of mass timber and cross-laminated timber in the built environment. It is estimated that the mixed-use development will store approximately 500 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

The University of Arkansas is constructing the $43 million Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation in Fayetteville. Designed by Grafton Architects  and Modus Studio, the 44,763-sf project will enable the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design to accelerate the creation of innovative timber construction modalities.

Designs by ZMM Architects and Engineers and CannonDesign are underway for a new facility that will bring together under one roof three West Virginia state laboratories and researchers from two universities, creating novel opportunities for collaboration. McClaren, Wilson & Lawrie (MWL) are the lab planners for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and State Police Forensics, and Potesta & Associates are providing civil engineering services. Housed in the new building will be:

Michigan State University (MSU) and Henry Ford Health have joined forces to construct the $335 million Henry Ford Health + Michigan State University Research Center, which will house 84 principal investigators and their research teams focused on cancer, neuroscience, infectious diseases, immunology, and public health. The first floor will accommodate a large core lab including an imaging suite. An entire floor will be dedicated to the Nick Gilbert Neurofibromatosis Research Institute.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison broke ground in May of 2024 on the College of Letters & Science’s new Irving & Dorothy Levy Hall, a 136,000-sf facility that will serve as the new home for eight academic departments. The building was designed by Bora Architecture & Interiors in collaboration with Ramlow/Stein Architecture + Interiors, with C.D. Smith Construction serving as the construction manager.

Siemens Healthineers—a spinoff of Siemens that focuses exclusively on healthcare equipment, solutions, and services—has begun construction on a £250 million ($314 million) facility in the United Kingdom to research and manufacture a breakthrough sustainable design for MRI superconducting magnets that reduces the need for helium from 1,500 liters (more than 396 gallons) to a single liter (just over a quart). 

Construction has begun on the Marine Research Institute and Sea Turtle Research Center and Hospital at the University of Florida’s Whitney Lab for Marine Bioscience. The building, designed by Lord Aeck Sargent and TTV Architects, is planned for LEED Gold certification. DPR is the construction manager.

Texas A&M-Texarkana is planning to break ground in late May of 2024 on the Business, Engineering, and Technology Building (BET), a 53,500-sf facility housing those three interdisciplinary programs. The $45 million project also includes a renovation of the Science and Technology Building, which will connect to the new facility with walkways on the second and third floors.

The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) broke ground in May of 2024 on the 68,000-sf, $109.7 million Princeton Plasma Innovation Center (PPIC), a laboratory and office facility designed by SmithGroup and dedicated to research in the fields of microelectronics, quantum sensors and devices, and sustainability sciences, with a focus on achieving fusion energy by 2040. 

The International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) has announced the 2024 Facility of the Year Awards category winners. The awards include:

Phase 3 Real Estate Partners and Bain Capital completed construction in February of 2024 on Genesis Marina, a waterfront life sciences campus in Brisbane, Calif. Offering floor plates of up to 42,000 sf, the three-building complex provides over 560,000 rsf of Class A laboratory and office space. Every research suite is equipped with a modular benching system that is pre-plumbed and pre-wired for fast installation and effortless reconfiguration.