Higher Education

The University of Southern California broke ground in November of 2024 on the $200 million Bloom Football Performance Center in Los Angeles. Designed by HNTB, the 163,000-sf facility will position USC to recruit top national talent as part of its transition to the Big Ten Conference. A strategic redevelopment of the John McKay Center will create a vibrant new home for Trojan Football and support the university's entire student-athlete population.

The vision of biomedical research as a collective effort is resoundingly clear in the $237.5 million Pelotonia Research Center, the first building to be completed in the 350-plus-acre Carmenton district on the campus of The Ohio State University (Ohio State) in Columbus. Opened in May 2023, the center integrates almost 100,000 sf of wet labs, 25,000 sf of computational labs, and 20,000 sf of core labs in a single facility designed to host interdisciplinary collaborations and public-private initiatives that focus on solving some of the most critical health challenges. With life science as the backbone of the research endeavor, current projects range from modeling cancer progressions to 3D printing of patient-specific anatomic models. 

Rice University’s Ralph S. O’Connor Building for Engineering and Science, which opened in September 2023, is a 250,000-gsf center for advanced materials sciences designed to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration by bringing together researchers in the fields of chemistry, biomolecular engineering, physics, and nanoengineering who had previously been scattered across 13 different buildings around the campus. 

University of Arizona Health Sciences broke ground in late October of 2024 on the Center for Advanced Molecular and Immunological Therapies (CAMI). Delivered by the design-build team of SmithGroup and McCarthy Building Companies, the transformational project will serve as a physical and metaphorical gateway to the Downtown Phoenix district and the Phoenix Bioscience Core.

Texas A&M University broke ground in November of 2024 on the Space Institute in Houston. Designed by Energy Architecture, the $200 million building is strategically sited on 32 acres at NASA's Exploration Park, just outside the access-controlled area of the Johnson Space Center. The 400,000-sf structure will provide sophisticated environments for aeronautics research and the development of advanced robotics.

Stanford University is building a consolidated home for the Graduate School of Education that will accelerate the creation of innovative new pedagogies and learning modalities. William Rawn Associates and CAW Architects designed the approximately 150,000-sf project, which includes the construction of a four-story, 42,700-sf structure. The three-story, 97,547-sf Graduate Education Building is also undergoing a complete renovation.

Understanding space utilization in today’s hybrid academic world is essential to creating a positive, productive work environment for students, faculty, and staff. A nationwide study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics shows 53% of students are enrolled in at least one online class. Universities are rethinking their priorities, ensuring their technology and environments address both in-person and online learning with a modern system for managing space usage. University leaders can make better space management decisions by gathering data relevant to how their spaces are used, including how many rooms and desks are available and how often they are used, how rooms are assigned, and how the stakeholders rate their overall experience.

The University of Maine broke ground in October of 2024 on the $81 million Green Engineering and Materials (GEM) building in Orono. Designed by SMRT Architects & Engineers and Grimshaw Architects, the 50,000-sf project will house the Factory of the Future, a test bed for large-format additive manufacturing. Academic spaces for the Maine College of Engineering and Computing will be collocated with active research environments, offering unique opportunities for immersive learning.

The University of Arizona opened the $99 million Grand Challenges Research Building (GCRB) in October of 2024 in Tucson. Designed by ZGF Architects and BWS Architects, the 115,000-sf facility offers flexible labs for programs in optics, quantum computing, advanced communications, and biomedicine. With instructional venues, study areas, and meeting rooms strategically located on the ground floor, the seven-story project features robust maker spaces and advanced instrumentation suites to drive interdisciplinary discovery.

The University of Kansas is constructing the Gateway District, a vibrant destination for sports performance and training at the heart of the Lawrence campus. Designed by HNTB and Multistudio, the $448 million project includes the transformation of David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium to provide a new seating bowl layout with improved sightlines. Improved concourse circulation will be accompanied by more space for concessions, accessible seating, and restrooms.

The University of New Mexico opened the $43.2 million College of Nursing and Public Health Excellence (CON-PHE) building in Albuquerque in October of 2024. Designed by Dekker in association with RDG Planning & Design, the 93,000-sf structure consolidates activities previously dispersed in ten separate locations, while also providing critical space for expansion. Flexible teaching labs and classrooms are equipped with innovative technologies to support interactive learning, training, and exploration.

Michigan State University broke ground in October of 2024 on the $200 million Plant and Environmental Sciences Building in East Lansing. Designed by HED and CannonDesign, the 200,000-sf facility will accelerate the discovery and development of global solutions for food security. Approximately 40 principal investigators and their teams will occupy the structure, which will feature leading-edge wet labs, growth chambers, and instrumentation suites.

Colorado State University broke ground in October of 2024 on ATLAS, the Advanced Technology Lasers for Applications and Science facility in Fort Collins. Created in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fusion Energy Sciences program, the development is made possible by a $150 million public-private partnership with Marvel Fusion. A trio of ultra-high-power lasers that can be used separately or in combination will drive innovative discoveries in clean energy, medicine, and fundamental research.

Virginia Commonwealth University needed new space for math and science classes. When prototypes and stakeholder feedback indicated the student experience was top priority, they changed their planned two-stage facility to a single STEM building focused on making it easier for students to learn in the ways that suit them best, with spaces designed to break down barriers between faculty and students.

A $139 million project to expand the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia (UVA) will provide cutting-edge business education well into the future by offering students the best technological resources, on-site and remote learning environments, and a variety of spaces to collaborate and socialize. The construction of a new 80,000-sf structure and renovation of a historic building, both slated for completion in March 2025, will grow McIntire beyond the 156,000 sf of space it has called home since 2008. The hub of buildings addresses a space deficit and creates a growing commerce complex, providing a link between the university, its students, and nearby business districts.