Higher Education

Northwestern University has awarded the Chicago office of Turner Construction Company a $25.9-million contract for the construction of the 86,0000-sf Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly. The new, four-story plus basement chemistry lab building will house 16 labs, faculty and graduate student offices, conference rooms, and support spaces. The project scope includes laboratory casework, fume hoods, lab equipment, and extensive M/E/P systems and temperature controls required to support the lab environments.

Duke University opened its new $200-million Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy research center in late November 2000. The institute’s mission is to develop applications of genomic research through the work of a multidisciplinary consortium of scientists, engineers, physicians, lawyers and ethicists. Five centers will comprise the institute: the Center for Human Genetics; the Center for Human Disease Models; the Center for Genome Technology; the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology; and the Center for Ethics, Law, and Policy.

Georgia Tech's College of Architecture Center for Rehabilitation Technology (CRT) will create the Information Technology Technical Assistance and Training Center. In a five-year program, the CRT will provide design expertise to major technology manufacturers so that computers and telecommunication technologies may be more easily used by persons with disabilities. The Training Center is the result of a $7.5-million federal grant awarded in September 2000 to Georgia Tech by the U.S. Department of Education's National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research.

The University of Maryland recently launched eDorm—an electronic dormitory in Garrett Hall designed and equipped by Basking Ridge, N.J.-based Avaya (formerly the Enterprise Networks Group of Lucent Technologies) that houses 21 undergraduate students participating in the university’s Hinman Campus Entrepreneurship Opportunities (CEO’s) Program. EDorm gives students in the CEOs Program easy access to communications technologies to build their own businesses, such as desktop videoconferencing, multimedia messaging, high-speed data connections, voice over the Internet, and wireless roaming.

Southwest Texas State University has entered into a partnership with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to create an aquatic research center—the Texas Rivers Center—at the university’s Aquarena Center. The $16-million facility will focus on public awareness of aquatic ecology and serve as the center for research on protecting and restoring the former Aquarena Springs resort property’s archaeology and history. Construction is slated to start in summer 2001.

University of Connecticut (UConn) broke ground in October on Rentschler Field, a $90-million state-funded project aimed at revitalizing the Hartford area and elevating the UConn football program to national status. The 40,000-seat football stadium will serve as home field for UConn Football as well as other sports and entertainment events. The facility will occupy 8.5 acres of the 75-acre site contributed by Hartford-based United Technologies.

Bucknell University has selected Ewing Cole Cherry Brott of Philadelphia to design the University’s new recreation and athletics center. The project includes a sports Hall of Fame, 4,000-seat multipurpose gymnasium with a new student fitness center, natatorium, coaches’ offices, varsity locker facilities, and renovations to the original gymnasium and natatorium. Bucknell’s new facility will connect with the existing athletic center. Construction of the athletic facility began in late November 2000 with completion in the fall of 2002.

Concordia University recently broke ground on the Walter and Maxine Christopher Center for Learning and Leadership, a 83,000-sf three-story structure designed by Holabird & Root of Chicago. The center will provide a setting for modeling ideal teaching environments and promoting the highest standards of quality care for young children.

Washington University broke ground in early October 2000 on the university’s Uncas A. Whitaker Hall for Biomedical Engineering building, designed by Boston-based architects Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott. The new three-story facility will include a flexible laboratory wing comprised of 22,000 sf of wet lab space and 12,500 sf of procedure equipment and environmental areas (which will include a nanofabrication lab, vivarium, electron microscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance suites).

Pennsylvania State University has completed installation of a comprehensive new $1 million wayfinding and signage system at its 540-acre University Park campus. A $700-million campuswide construction program over the past five years has created difficulties, especially for new students and students with disabilities, in finding accessible pathways, building names, and accessible building entrances. The university has established an annual budget to maintain and perpetuate the new signage system.

Vanderbilt University recently broke ground for the new Jacobs Hall Addition and Renovation, a $28 million, three-story, 150,000-sf facility that will unite the departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering, giving the School of Engineering a new campus identity. Classrooms, lecture halls, shop space and indoor and outdoor public gathering spaces will be located on the ground floor. Teaching and research labs will be located on the upper floors.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) broke ground in late October 2000 on a new $45-million Sports and Fitness Center designed by the architectural firms of Roche & Dinkeloo and Sasaki Associates. The MIT Center will include an Olympic-class pool and a separate teaching pool; a state-of-the-art health-fitness center; a multi-activity court for volleyball, aerobics, recreational basketball, in-line hockey, and other activities; six squash courts; a sports medicine center; administrative offices; and other support facilities.

California State University-Hayward (CSUH) is raising money for the construction of a new $20-million Business and Technology Center—a three-story, 100,000-sf facility to house the School of Business and Economics.

Thomas Jefferson University’s planned $140-million Kimmel Cancer Center, a cancer treatment and research center, will be postponed for one year as the university raises funds for the project and searches for a solution to a potentially critical parking situation envisioned when a 400-car parking garage is demolished to make way for the new center.  The planned 380,000-sf structure, designed by the architectural firm of Perkins & Will of Chicago, will reach 20 stories and include underground parking spaces for 200 cars.

St. Mary's College will dedicate its new state-of-the-art, $25 million J.C. Gatehouse science center in early October. Special features of the 57,000-sf facility, designed by Ratcliff Associates of Emeryville, Calif., include the latest audio visual technology, with students at their workstations using laptops provided by the school; and research labs adjacent to the classrooms to foster student/professor interaction.