Research and Development

Stony Brook University’s Renaissance School of Medicine in Stony Brook, N.Y., has increased its capacity for ultra-low-temperature freezer storage, a need that became critical nationwide in early 2021 when the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine required that level of storage, limiting which hospitals and pharmacies could offer it. Stony Brook’s new 560,000-sf Medical and Research Translation facility contains a low-temp walk-in (LTW) Freezer Farm suite with eight minus-80-degree-Celsius permanent storage chambers and a minus-20-degree-Celsius storage corridor with a combined capacity of over 1.8 million samples. This is the equivalent storage of 80 traditional point-of-use (POU) stand-alone freezer units.

EMD Serono completed construction in March of 2022 on the $70 million Horizon Building in Billerica, Mass. Designed by PM Group, the 149,000-sf structure provides collaborative research environments to accelerate the creation of specialty pharmaceuticals. The mixed-use R&D facility includes approximately 30,000 sf of flexible wet lab space featuring reconfigurable benches and overhead service panels with plug-and-play connectivity.

HYM Investment Group began construction in March of 2022 on a $280 million biomanufacturing hub in Revere, Mass. Designed by Elkus Manfredi Architects, the six-story life sciences facility will offer leasable research environments for biomedical and pharmaceutical companies. Complemented by retail and dining amenities, the structure will feature two double-height floors for GMP production and manufacturing activities.

Southern Research will begin construction in mid-2022 on an $84 million biotechnology center in Birmingham, Ala. Providing crucial biocontainment capacity for the study of infectious diseases, the 80,000-sf building will enhance pandemic preparedness efforts with BSL-3 laboratories spanning 7,500 sf. The five-level project will also include structural biology labs, high-throughput screening facilities, and a STEM education center.

The Bakar BioEnginuity Hub (BBH), a newly opened life science incubator in Woo Hon Fai Hall on the University of California Berkeley campus, sets a new standard for adaptive reuse of historically significant buildings. Originally completed in 1970, the 94,000-sf cast-in-place concrete building was designed by famed San Francisco architect Mario Ciampi as the home of the Berkeley Art Museum and the Pacific Film Archive. Considered an iconic example of mid-century brutalist architecture, the building was found to have significant seismic vulnerabilities after a campus-wide assessment was conducted in 1997. Despite installing temporary reinforcement bracing that improved the building’s seismic rating from “very poor” to “poor,” the museum ultimately moved to a new location in 2014, leaving the massive complex vacant until a decision was made in 2018 to transform it into a life science research incubator that also preserved the building’s historic legacy. While the bold adaptive reuse goal was laudable and widely supported, the architectural engineering and mechanical challenges of retrofitting the historic building to support the needs of a modern flexible life sciences lab were unprecedented.

Amgen broke ground in March of 2022 on a $550 million biomanufacturing center in Holly Springs, N.C. Accommodating the company's FleXBatch platform, the project will integrate traditional methods for drug substance production with single-use bioprocessing technologies to create a hybrid facility with unrivaled operational efficiencies. The next-generation plant will manufacture advanced therapeutics for the treatment of cardiovascular disease, cancer, osteoporosis, inflammation, and other conditions.

Gonzaga University opened the $50 million Bollier Family Center for Integrated Science and Engineering in spring of 2022 in Spokane, Wash. Designed by SRG Partnership and Integrus with Research Facilities Design (RFD) as laboratory design consultant, the 82,679-sf building is physically connected to the PACCAR Center for Applied Science and Hughes Hall to create a campus nexus for STEM education.

The University of Wyoming opened the $100 million Science Initiative Building in March of 2022 in Laramie. Designed by GSG Architecture and Perkins&Will, the 153,000-sf structure will enhance interaction among multiple disciplines by collocating researchers into a single complex with shared core facilities. Located on the first floor to mitigate vibration, the Center for Advanced Scientific Instrumentation provides electron microscopes, an X-ray refractometer, a mass spectrometer, and micro CT scanners.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas broke ground on the $75 million Advanced Engineering Building in February of 2022. Located on the Maryland campus, the three-story, 52,000-sf facility will enable the Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering to increase total enrollment from 3,000 to 5,000 students. The ground floor will provide undergraduates with numerous opportunities for experiential learning with a maker space, interactive classrooms, and a flexible auditorium and event venue.

Bristol Myers Squibb is partnering with Alexandria Real Estate Equities to create a 427,000-rsf R&D center in San Diego. Located in the Alexandria Point development, the leased facility will provide core labs for the creation of advanced biopharmaceutical therapies. Housing nearly 600 researchers and staff members, the collaborative building will consolidate employees from several regional campuses into a flexible working ecosystem for discovery and innovation.

Arizona State University completed construction in early 2022 on the $192 million Rob and Melani Walton Center for Planetary Health in Tempe. Designed by Architekton and Grimshaw, the 281,000-gsf facility provides leading-edge research labs for biological and life sciences, engineering, and sustainability, as well as offering dry labs for programs in computing, cybersecurity, and robotics.

Vermeulens has released its market outlook report for the fourth quarter of 2021. Key points include:

Eli Lilly & Company is investing approximately $700 million to create the Institute for Genetic Medicine in Boston. Located in the Seaport district, the leased facility will provide 334,000 rsf of leading-edge research space for the discovery of innovative RNA and DNA-based therapies. The project will also include a shared R&D center with dedicated and configurable lab environments to enable biotech start-ups to collaborate with Lilly scientists.

Build the first 14 floors now, then add a 16-story tower a decade or so into the future. That was Northwestern University’s unconventional approach to the construction of the Louis A. Simpson and Kimberly K. Querrey Biomedical Research Center on the Chicago campus of its Feinberg School of Medicine. It wasn’t the only out-of-the-box decision that enabled the university to move forward with its vision of creating a 1.2 million-sf, next-generation research hub about 10 miles south of its main campus in Evanston. Similarly inventive is the ownership arrangement of the first half, which became the largest academic biomedical research building in the U.S. when it opened in 2019. One of the medical school’s three major hospital affiliates, Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, owns four of the nine lab floors (amounting to roughly 160,000 sf) and has easements to four-ninths of all the common space in the 625,000-sf structure.

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University opened the $90 million Harold L. Martin Sr. Engineering Research & Innovation Complex in Greensboro in February of 2022. Designed by EYP Architecture & Engineering, the four-story, 130,000-gsf building accommodates programs in cybersecurity and network systems, energy and sustainability, and health applications.