The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, a 173,000 s/f facility, is among four laboratory and medical projects being designed by Centerbrook Architects and Planners.
Designed with Tsoi/Kobus & Associates, the facility is being built by The Jackson Laboratory, a nonprofit research institution based in Maine. Gilbane Building Co. has been selected as program manager.
JAX Genomic Medicine, a new nonprofit research institute for genomics-based medicine, will house 300 biomedical researchers, technicians and support staff in advanced computing facilities and laboratories.
Initial operations will begin this year in leased space on the University of Connecticut Health Center campus. The building will initially total 173,000 s/f and eventually total 250,000 s/f on 17 acres. Officials estimate construction will begin in early 2013 and be completed by the end of 2014.
The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine will enable Connecticut to assume a position of global leadership in developing new medical treatments tailored to each patient's unique genetic makeup.
It's estimated the project will create 661 research-related jobs, as well as 842 construction jobs and an estimated 6,200 spinoff and indirect jobs.
The total 20-year capital and research budget for the institute is projected to be $1.1 billion, with Jackson Laboratory providing $809 million through federal research grants, philanthropy and service income, and the State of Connecticut contributing $291 million ($192 million in a construction loan and $99 million in research partnership participation).
Centerbrook partner James Childress said, "This project is a big deal for us, as it is for the State of Connecticut. We have the opportunity to work with the best laboratory designers in the country to help The Jackson Laboratory create a place that will be a world leader in medical research."
Centerbrook is designing similar projects for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), Quinnipiac University, and the Southern Connecticut State University.
At CSHL, a biomedical and educational institution on Long Island that has been home to eight Nobel laureates, Centerbrook is renovating and expanding Demerec Laboratory. Centerbrook has designed 45 projects at CSHL, including the new 100,000 s/f Hillside Research Campus that opened in 2009.
In North Haven, Conn., the firm has completed and begun implementing a master plan for Quinnipiac University's new 104-acre Graduate Campus, which will encompass the establishment of a school of medicine as a part of a health professions center. Opening in 2013, the medical school will be the third in the state. Centerbrook had been the architect for four dozen projects at Quinnipiac University dating to the 1970s
Centerbrook also is designing a 98,332 s/f academic and laboratory science building for Southern Connecticut State University. It will house teaching and research laboratories for nano-technology, physics and optics, the earth sciences, the environmental sciences, cancer research, astronomy, biology, and chemistry.