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innovationUTAH.com

Linking Utah's Innovation Community

Buildings to Bolster State's "Innovation Infrastructure"

Interdisciplinary USTAR research facilities on the way at USU and U of U

 

Leading researchers and industry will utilize two state of-the-art interdisciplinary research and development facilities coming to Utah as a result of a key program of the USTAR initiative.

These facilities, one at the University of Utah (U of U) and one at Utah State University (USU), will be used by the recruited “all-star” research teams working in the initiative’s key innovation areas. Each facility will also serve as an industry magnet, encouraging collaboration between USTAR researchers and industry experts. The building construction process is being led by Project Managers from the Department of Facilities and Construction Management (DFCM).

 

USTAR is encouraging our industry contacts to provide feedback on the design of these two innovation centers. The primary purpose of these buildings is to give our research teams top-of-the-line facilities in which to conduct their work. The secondary purpose is also critical, and that is to foster the connection between industry, entrepreneurship and research.

The USU building will house researchers pursuing advanced nutrition and other life science efforts. This 110,000 square feet building will be located in the Innovation Campus on the north side of the entire USU complex. Check out the web cam to track progress. Read about the ribbon cutting ceremony here.

Image at right courtesy of Jared Thanye

Gramoll Construction has been competitively selected as the Construction Manager General Contractor (CMGC) as was AJC Architects as the Architectural and Engineering (AE) firm and design team lead. Payette Associates will design some of the lab space.


Ground breaking for the facility, which aims for LEED Gold certification, took place October 17, 2008 and it is slated to open in 2011. USU facilities are to include:

Watch Building for the Economy of Tomorrow- a video by the Salt Lake Chamber about the new building.

At the U of U, Layton Construction, Inc. has been competitively selected as the Construction Manager General Contractor (CMGC) as was Lord Aeck Sargent Architecture as the Architectural and Engineering (AE) firm and design team lead (with local collaboration with Prescott Muir). Construction of the 200,000 square foot facility should be complete in 2012.

The USTAR facility is part of the U of U’s recently updated Campus Master Plan and will anchor a new research complex. Uof U facilities are to include:

 

Recently the Sorenson Legacy Foundation donated $15 million, and the new building will be named the "James L. Sorenson Molecular Biotechnology Building - A USTAR Innovation Center." This follows a $1.25 million donation from the Micron Technology Foundation. The new building is envisioned to be part of a four-building interdisciplinary quadrangle which will be located between lower and upper campus and act as a central unifier between the work in the College of Engineering and the Health and Medical School.

Much thought has gone into the location of the building, its design, its equipment, and other elements that will encourage interaction and collaboration between experts across disciplines. “The building site both physically and academically unites the health sciences campus with the main campus and its basic research resources. The building will bring talented people together to cross traditional boundaries and accelerate research at the interfaces of medicine, pharmacy, engineering, computer science and life sciences,” said Dinesh Patel, managing director at vSpring Capital and chairman of the USTAR Governing Authority. “We intend the building to be at the crossroads of interdisciplinary translational research on campus and across the state.”

Groundbreaking took place on Earth Day, April 22, 2009, and you can watch coverage here. Gov. Jon M. Huntsman, Jr. commented, “USTAR resides at the heart and soul of everything we do in this state…it is an exciting thing to do in this climate because it speaks to hope and to a state that’s on the move.”

Earth Day was an appropriate launch date. The design team met the charge for sustainability by creating an energy efficient building that will reduce both energy use and energy cost from current laboratory code requirements by a minimum of 40 percent. Some of the strategies used to achieve this include daylighting that will allow natural light to reach at least 75 percent of the building’s occupied spaces, and the use of sunshades to modulate the quality and intensity of light as it enters the building at different times of day and from different angles throughout the year.

Some other key sustainable design strategies incorporated into the building and the site include:

Funding for the projects came in March 2006 when State legislators created a $161 million USTAR building fund. The universities are providing a $40 million match, bringing the entire building budget to $201 million. The USTAR legislation required both of the research universities to donate land and make significant contributions towards the cost of the building prior to construction. Both the U of U and USU have designated land that will be used.

USU donated a 33,000 square-foot building in Innovation Campus which has been designated Phase I and is being used to house the existing innovation teams. The Legislature and Governing Authority approved the donation of both Building 620 and accompanying land to satisfy the university’s $10 million contribution.

 

Timeframe

# in Salt Lake

# in Logan

Total Employed

Oct-Dec 2008

55

20

75

Jan-Jun 2009

225

88

313

Jul-Dec 2009

450

144

594

Jan-Jun 2010

750

144

894

Jul-Dec 2010

750

60

810

Jan-Jun 1011

750

750

Jul-Dec 2011

450

450

 

BioInnovations Gateway
In addition to the two research university building projects, USTAR has assisted in the launch of the BioInnovations Gateway, a new national model for life science business incubation and workforce development. Read the BiG overview here.