Academic Medical

Auburn University began construction in February of 2016 on two new health science facilities in Auburn, Ala. Designed to support advanced instruction in team-based healthcare, the $29 million School of Nursing will feature simulation labs, active learning classrooms, and spacious interdisciplinary teaching labs. The three-story, 89,000-sf building will also provide research space, faculty offices, conference rooms, a tiered auditorium, and a student lounge.

Wake Forest Baptist Health is expanding the campus of Davie Medical Center in Bermuda Run, N.C. The $47 million addition will provide 50 inpatient beds as well as clinical space for geriatric and joint replacement services. Ground was broken on the project in December of 2015 and occupancy is expected in spring of 2017.

VU University Medical Center will begin construction in March of 2016 on the 172,222-sf VUmc Imaging Center Amsterdam. Providing flexible laboratories for biomedical research, the six-story facility will promote interaction and collaboration by collocating the hospital's radiology and nuclear medicine departments in a single location. The sustainably designed project will be constructed to attain a BREEAM Very Good rating by a joint venture of De Beeldbouwers VOF and Ballast Nedam.

Texas A&M University broke ground on the $12.6 million Human Clinical Research Facility in January of 2016. Located on the west campus in Canyon, Texas, the 20,000-sf project will accommodate clinical trials and programs for the College of Education and Human Development. Designed by PBK Architects, the facility will house the Exercise and Sport Nutrition Laboratory and the Center for Translational Research in Aging and Longevity.

Legacy Health opened its $27 million headquarters and central laboratory facility in January of 2016 in Portland, Ore. The 62,000-sf building was sustainably designed to provide substantial energy savings and increased operational efficiencies. The project doubles the footprint of Legacy's previous location and will enable the company to expand to meet the growing demand for laboratory services.

Kettering Health Network is building a $49 million comprehensive cancer center on its main hospital campus in Kettering, Ohio. Ground was broken in May of 2015 on the patient-centric facility, which will provide advanced cancer treatment technologies in a serene interior environment. The general contractor for the five-story, 120,000-sf project is Danis Building Construction. Completion is expected in late 2016.

Collin College opened the Cary A. Israel Health Sciences Center in January of 2016. Located on the Central Park campus in McKinney, Texas, the 125,000-sf facility provides classrooms, offices, and laboratories for programs in nursing, surgical technology, emergency services, respiratory care, and sleep disorders therapy. Designed by PBK Architects and built by Pogue Construction, the three-story project features a large simulation training center with advanced patient simulators and a 150-seat lecture hall.

Bellevue College opened its $21.8 million Health Sciences Building in December of 2015 in Bellevue, Wash. Designed by LMN Architects and built by Bayley Construction, the 70,500-sf facility provides classrooms and teaching labs for programs in imaging and nursing, as well as academic and administrative offices. The Health Sciences Building features a five-room simulation training lab and two clinical skills labs with a total of 20 hospital beds.

Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare has selected Turner Construction as the general contractor for a $280 million expansion of the Methodist University Hospital campus in Memphis, Tenn. Designed by HKS and Self + Tucker Architects, the project includes the creation of a 440,000-sf addition which will be delivered using an overbuild technique to construct a nine-story patient tower on top of the existing emergency department.

Complex technology, expanding program, and increasingly specialized and segmented roles and responsibilities often create a disconnect in the process of designing and building sophisticated facilities. The result can be a research or diagnostic lab or high-containment animal building that becomes a burden to the owner, whether because it hasn’t been right-sized, is not energy efficient, or operates with sub-par reliability. The solution is to assign someone the task of aligning design decisions with the building’s ultimate scientific mission.

Carleton University began construction in December of 2015 on a $52 million (USD$36.8 million) health sciences building in Ottawa. The seven-story, 120,000-sf facility will provide classrooms and open laboratories to support neuroscience and health sciences programs. The project will also include collaborative research space for the study of healthy aging and infectious diseases. Completion is expected in August of 2017.

Baylor St. Luke’s is building a $1.1 billion medical campus in Houston. Created by Catholic Health Initiatives and Baylor College of Medicine, the project includes a $917 million, 650-bed hospital with two bed towers as well an ambulatory care complex and laboratories for basic and translational research. The 27.5-acre McNair Campus will enable Baylor St. Luke’s to consolidate clinical services currently located at the Texas Medical Center and will also be the future site of the Texas Heart Institute.

A backlog of construction, renovations, and upgrades may finally come to life, thanks to the $2 billion increase in NIH funding Congress approved in December, the first increase in more than 12 years. More than 80 percent of the $32 billion NIH budget is dedicated to extramural research—research outside the NIH itself—meaning that an additional $1.6 billion in research grants will be made available this year.

Stamford Hospital opened a $5.2 million outpatient building in January of 2016 in Stamford, Conn. Designed by The S/L/A/M Collaborative and built by AP Construction, the 46,000-sf renovation project provides modern space for a broad array of clinical services including adult primary care and specialty consultation; urogynecology and pelvic surgery; obstetrics and gynecology; diabetes and endocrinology; and radiology.

The National Institutes of Health will receive a federal funding increase of $2 billion from a bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in December of 2015. Representing the largest funding increase in over a decade, the legislation will establish the NIH's annual budget at $32 billion.