Higher Education

The four-story, 72,500-sf Lawrence and Sally Cohen Science Center houses Wilkes University’s departments of Biology and Health Sciences on the second floor; Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Environmental Engineering and Earth Science, on the fourth; teaching labs on the second and fourth floors; and flexible, interdisciplinary research labs on the third. Nearly all Wilkes students will take at least one class in the new facility, which wraps around an existing auditorium on an adjacent building.

The University of Queensland opened the $100 million Oral Health Centre in Brisbane in July of 2015. Located next to the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital in Herston, the seven-story, 48,400-sf facility provides dental clinics, lecture and seminar rooms, simulation training labs, two surgical suites, biomedical research space, and a Physical Containment Level 2 (PC2) biosafety lab. The project features demonstration chairs equipped with integrated recording and streaming technologies for the documentation of procedures.

The Infectious Diseases Institute at Makerere University opened the McKinnell Knowledge Centre in June of 2015 in Kampala, Uganda. Located at the College of Health Sciences, the $3.3 million disease detection and surveillance facility will include space for research, training, and outreach. The project will act as a strategic data management hub to support regional healthcare initiatives. The center features distance learning capabilities to provide medical training courses created by Stanford University and other institutions.

Stanford University began site work in July of 2015 for the $107 million Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Biology Research Building in Palo Alto, Calif. The 123,450-gsf facility will provide laboratory space for biochemistry and computational research as well as including classrooms and offices for the Department of Biology. The building will have four stories above ground with a core lab for mass spectroscopy located below grade.

Cornell Tech began building the Roosevelt Island campus in New York in June of 2015. The site plan for the $2 billion project was created by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and James Corner Field Operations. The sustainably designed campus represents a partnership between Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Cornell University. The 12-acre campus will feature the Bloomberg Center designed by Morphosis to be one of the largest net-zero buildings in the United States.

The Integrated Sciences Complex (ISC) at UMass Boston serves as a gateway to the campus and as an interdisciplinary hub for learning and collaboration, providing the university with state-of-the-art research, teaching, and training laboratories. It is the first new academic building on the campus since it opened in 1974.

Purdue University broke ground in June of 2015 on the $50 million Indiana Advanced Manufacturing Research Center in West Lafayette. Located in the Purdue Research Park, the 62,000-sf facility will support the creation of advanced composite materials and will feature production simulation and 3D printing technologies. Purdue will initially occupy 30,000 sf in the center, which will provide 32,000 sf of leasable space for industry partners. The project is supported by funding from the Department of Energy and the Indiana Economic Development Corporation.

Montana State University is planning to build the $50 million Norm Asbjornson Innovation Center in Bozeman. Designed by ZGF Architects of Seattle and A&E Architects of Billings, the three-story facility will house classrooms, labs, offices, and a presentation hall. The laboratory programming and design consultant for the project is Research Facilities Design (RFD).

Indiana University broke ground in June of 2015 on the $45 million Arts and Sciences building in Gary, Ind. Created in partnership with Ivy Tech Community College, the three-story, 133,500-sf project will accommodate IU Northwest's programs in fine and performing arts as well as providing academic and administrative space. Ivy Tech’s science teaching labs and admissions offices will occupy 30 percent of the facility. The project will include shared classrooms and informal study spaces as well as a 500-seat auditorium and a black box theater.

Iowa State University is planning to build the $52 million Advanced Teaching and Research Building on its Ames campus. The five-story, 115,000-gsf facility will provide classrooms, teaching labs, faculty offices, and research space. Bessey Hall will also undergo a $28 million renovation, including construction of a four-story, 45,000-gsf addition, to provide undergraduate teaching and research labs. Work will begin on both projects in spring of 2016.

Michigan State University broke ground in June of 2015 on an $88.1 million biomedical research facility in the Grand Rapids Innovation Park. The six-story, 162,800-sf project will provide the College of Human Medicine with open labs to support up to 44 research teams. Designed by SmithGroupJJR with Ellenzweig as laboratory design consultant, the facility will feature core labs for flow cytometry, bioinformatics, microscopy, and long-term storage.

Loma Linda University Health is building a health care and education center in San Bernardino, Calif. Created in partnership with San Manuel Gateway College, the 150,000-sf facility will accommodate certificate programs in nursing, medical and dental assisting, phlebotomy, and insurance coding. The project will include a multi-specialty clinic operated by Social Action Community Health System and is funded in part by a $10 million donation from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians. Occupancy is expected in spring of 2016.

A new 650,000-sf, $295 million complex in Portland, Oregon, consists of the 12-story Skourtes Tower and five-story Collaborative Life Sciences Building (CLSB), which are connected by an atrium nicknamed the “mixing bowl” because it brings everyone together in a central location. The complex supports an interprofessional, multi-institutional program for medicine, nursing, allied health, dentistry, and undergraduate sciences, as well as pure research.

North Carolina A&T State University began site work in June of 2015 for a $90 million student center in Greensboro, N.C. The three-story, 150,000-sf facility will provide a central commons area, a 500-seat lecture hall, conference and study rooms, offices, restaurants, a bookstore, and a 250-seat dining facility. The project was designed by Cannon Design and Vines Architecture and is being built by a partnership of Balfour Beatty Construction, D.H.