Oregon Health & Sciences University began construction in January of 2016 on the $349 million Center for Health and Healing South in Portland, Ore. Designed by ZGF Architects and built by Hoffman Construction, the project includes a 14-story medical building and a 10-story mixed-use facility. The $160 Knight Cancer Institute will also be built on the South Waterfront Campus.
The National Veterinary Research Institute has completed commissioning the Bio-Safety Level III Laboratory in Vom, Nigeria. The $2.5 million facility will enhance the Institute's ability to detect, diagnose, and respond to infectious diseases throughout West Africa. The duration of construction for the project, which was created in partnership with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, was three years.
Novartis and the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine celebrated the opening of the $27 million Center for Advanced Cellular Therapeutics in February of 2016 in Philadelphia. Accommodating the production of personalized cancer treatments using chimeric antigen receptor technology, the 30,000-sf facility features 23,610 sf of laboratory and cell therapy manufacturing space as well as a 6,300-sf cleanroom.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals broke ground in April of 2016 on a $200 million manufacturing plant in Norton, Mass. Featuring RNA synthesis technologies with advanced purification methods, the 200,000-sf facility will accommodate up to 220 workers engaged in the production of innovative therapeutic agents. Jacobs Engineering Group will provide engineering and procurement services for the project. Completion is expected in 2018.
The University of East Anglia began site work in February of 2016 on the $140 million Quadram Institute, a new biomedical research facility located in the Norwich Research Park in the United Kingdom. Housing the Institute of Food Research, the multidisciplinary project is being created in partnership with Norwich University Hospital and will accommodate the study of gut flora in the human microbiome, healthy aging, and food innovation and safety.
SoBran BioScience is creating an animal research facility in Greensboro, N.C. Located on the north campus of the Gateway University Research Park, the laboratory and office building will support collaborative partnerships with North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. The facility will provide 8,500 sf of preclinical lab space designed to meet ISO 9001-2008 and GLP (Good Laboratory Practice) standards and attain full AAALAC accreditation.
The University of Cambridge is planning to build a $125 million biomedical research facility in the United Kingdom. The six-story, 190,000-sf Project Capella will house the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, the Milner Therapeutics Institute, the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology & Infectious Disease, and the Cambridge Centre for Haematopoiesis and Haematological Malignancies. Lean construction methodology will be implemented in the delivery of the facility, which is slated for completion in the second quarter of 2018.
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.
The University of Cambridge is planning to relocate the Cavendish Laboratory to its West Cambridge campus in the United Kingdom. The $100 million replacement facility will feature a cleanroom, research laboratories, instructional space, and large-scale experimental chambers. The project team includes design architect Jestico + Whiles, project manager Sweett, engineering consultant Ramboll, and cost management consultant Aecom. Occupancy is expected in 2020.
The University of Texas at Dallas opened the $108 million Bioengineering and Sciences facility in June of 2016. Designed to promote interaction and collaboration, the four-story, 220,000-sf project is physically connected to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Laboratory. The facility provides classrooms, faculty offices, and teaching and research labs for programs in biology, chemistry, physics, and electrical and mechanical engineering. Construction began on the project in late 2013.
With many biomedical organizations considering consolidating research equipment into core facilities, “renovate to innovate” should be a guiding principle, according to professionals from DPR Construction and Gensler. The design for a recent renovation undertaken at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa, Fla.—the Shared Resource Center—evolved to support the translational research that is Moffitt’s focus, not only by collocating vital instrumentation, but also by building in modularity and providing a literal “window” to view active research.
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.
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.
