Research and Development

Boeing opened an 80,000-sf research and technology center in June of 2015 in Huntsville, Ala. The facility will support the development of technologies for propulsion, sensing, simulation, communications, cybersecurity, and systems analysis. Supporting collaboration with academic and industry partners, the center will feature instrumentation including testing chambers for metal analysis, vehicle management simulation suites, an accelerated-rate calorimeter, and autoclaves to heat-treat composite materials. 

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).

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.

Gilead Sciences opened a 45,000-sf pharmaceutical manufacturing laboratory in May of 2015 in Edmonton, Alberta. The facility is part of a two-building, $200 million campus expansion to support the production of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs). The second buiding is currently under construction and will provide 139,000 sf of research and developent space when it opens 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.

Toyota Motor Corp. broke ground in June of 2015 on an expansion of its Technical Center in York Township, Mich. The $126 million project includes construction of a vehicle prototype development facility, a distribution hub, and an addition to the existing powertrain research center. Completion is expected in late 2016. Toyota is also constructing a new North American headquarters in Plano, Texas.

The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute will open a $42 million genome sequencing facility in August of 2015 in Hinxton in the United Kingdom. The three-story, 51,667-sf project is located near Cambridge on the Institute's biomedical research campus. The sequencing facility is an integral part of the master plan for the site, which will include a 38,750-sf bio-data innovation center. The Sanger Institute is operated by Genome Research Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Wellcome Trust.

The University of Glasgow began construction in fall of 2015 on the $25 million Imaging Centre of Excellence at the South Glasgow Hospitals Campus in Scotland. Designed by BMJ Architects, the project includes redevelopment of an existing building to provide advanced medical research space for neurological and cardiovascular conditions and will feature a 7-Tesla clinical MRI scanner.

Cincinnati Children's Hospital opened the $205 million Clinical Sciences Pavilion in June of 2015. The 15-story, 445,000-sf translational research tower will house over 1,500 scientists, clinicians, and staff engaged in the application of medical discoveries to patient care. The facility features a three-story atrium, a clinical trials center, advanced imaging suites, and laboratories and offices arranged in research neighborhoods to foster interaction and collaboration. Construction began on the pavilion in 2012.

Using a phased, core-and-shell strategy to construct the 310,000-gsf Life Science Laboratories (LSL) building allowed the University of Massachusetts Amherst to obtain high-level research space and take advantage of the competitive bid market and economic incentives available in 2010. The approach also provided economies of scale and the advantage of postponing programming and occupancy decisions with subsequent fit-outs.

Ferris State University will open the Shimadzu Core Laboratory for Academic and Research Excellence in fall of 2015. Located in the Arts and Sciences Complex in Big Rapids, Mich., the facility will include seven new instruments supplied by the Shimadzu Corporation with a total value of $500,000. The core lab will feature advanced spectrophotometry equipment to support student research in chemistry, physics, molecular biology, biochemistry, and forensic science.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security broke ground in May of 2015 on the $835 million National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan, Kan. Created in partnership with Kansas State University, the 574,000-gsf facility will provide shared BSL-2, BSL-3, and BSL-4 research space for the study of infectious diseases and select agents. The project is being built by the joint venture construction team of McCarthy/Mortenson.

Iowa State University's transgenic swine facility at Zumwalt Station Farm in Ames received an Award of Distinction from the Modular Building Institute in May of 2015. The 2,904-sf project was designed, manufactured, and installed by Art's Way Scientific. Supporting research on the genetic modification of domestic animals for agricultural and biomedical applications, the standalone facility incorporates biosafety features to protect a closed herd of swine.

St. Norbert College opened the renovated and expanded Gehl-Mulva Science Center in May of 2015 in De Pere, Wis. Supporting programs in physics, math, psychology, geology, biology, and chemistry, the completed 160,000-sf facility provides 45 teaching and research labs, 10 classrooms, a large lecture hall, 15 study lounges, and 38 faculty offices. The $40 million project included a multi-level expansion of the existing structure with construction of additions at the east and west ends.