Research and Development

Oregon State University is planning a $60 million expansion of the Oregon Forest Science Complex in Corvallis. The 85,000-sf building will provide additional teaching and research space for the College of Forestry as well as housing the 20,000-sf Advanced Wood Building Products Laboratory. Constructed with a strong floor to accommodate full-scale experiments, the lab will feature a high bay area and an advanced manufacturing center utilizing robotoic technologies.

The Pennsylvania State University opened the $59 million Health and Human Development Building in University Park in July of 2015. Designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, the 140,000-sf facility provides laboratories, classrooms, conference rooms, a student commons, faculty offices, and administrative space to support the Department of Human Development and Family Studies. LEED sustainable design certification will be sought for the project, which includes 40,000 sf of renovated space in the former Henderson Building South.

Frontage Labs opened a 36,000-sf clinical research center in Secaucus in July of 2015. Designed by DMR Architects, the facility provides a biomedical laboratory, 160 observation beds, exam rooms, administrative offices, dining facilities, a recreation center, and a pharmacy. The project was developed by retrofitting an existing building to meet the specifications of Frontage Labs, an early-stage drug development company based in Exton, Pa.

llumina is partnering with BioMed Realty Trust to develop a 155,000-sf research center in Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Supporting the creation of advanced biopharmaceutical and bioinformatics technologies, the leased facility is designed for ease of expansion, enabling the project to grow by 70,000 sf to provide a total of 225,000 sf of collaborative lab and office space. Illumina is headquartered in San Diego.

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.

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.