The new research laboratory has a function similar to the existing 145,000-square-foot UCSD School of Medicine Leichtag Family Foundation for Biomedical Research Building, which McCarthy completed for the University in spring of 2004. The newer facility will be part of the ongoing expansion of the School of Medicine campus.
Boone Hellman, campus architect for UCSD, is overseeing the $90 million project, with James Gillie, senior director of construction services for UCSD, supervising construction. Anticipating a two-year build-out, McCarthy will begin construction in fall of 2010.

Designed by nationally known ZGFArchitects, LLP (ZGF), the research building will fit within the modern design context of the academic mall on the School of Medicine campus.  The facility will encompass wet labs, open lab space, meeting rooms and support space on four stories above ground, with core lab space and support mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems located in the basement. The exterior of the building will be a combination of architectural concrete, curtain wall, metal panels, and terra cotta cladding.

A primary goal for the new facility is to achieve LEED Gold or possibly Platinum level of certification from the United States Green Building Council. This will necessitate an intensive, thoughtful approach to all aspects of design and construction and especially the build-out of the overall mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems to ensure optimum energy efficiency.

“The University and our design team have an expectation of this being one of the most sustainably designed and highest performing research labs on the UCSD campus and possibly in the country,” said Joe Collins, AIA, a partner with ZGF and principal architect for the new UCSD education laboratory. “We’ve had a lot of success teaming with McCarthy on past UC-system projects.  For this new facility, we’re going a step beyond to create, along with the owner, a customized project delivery system that brings the major trades into the project earlier to ensure its success.”

According to Bob Betz, project director for McCarthy, the aspect of the project that will prove most challenging is construction of the lab space and the highly MEP-intensive areas of the overhead construction.  Building Information Modeling (BIM) will be utilized extensively to help in the coordination of these spaces.
One of the more important features of the building design is the exterior architectural concrete work, which McCarthy will self perform. The firm previously achieved noteworthy success on the poured-in-place concrete of the nearby award-winning Student Academic Services Facility, completed by McCarthy in August 2007.

KPFF of Portland and San Diego is the structural engineer for the new UCSD Health Sciences Biomedical Research Facility.  IBE Consulting Engineers, based in Sherman Oaks, is the mechanical and plumbing engineer, and Integrated Engineering Consultants of Los Angeles is the electrical engineer. Spurlock Poirier of San Diego is the landscape architect.  RFD, also of San Diego, is the laboratory-planning consultant.

About McCarthy
McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. is the nation’s 10th largest domestic general contractor (Engineering News-Record, May 2008) and among the top 10 education builders (Engineering News-Record, October 2006). The firm has been building in the education market for the last 50 years. Committed to the construction of high performance buildings, the company has managed construction or built more than 300 K-12 school projects nationwide, totaling more than $2 billion in construction value, and nearly 100 higher education projects on more than 50 campuses. In addition to San Diego, McCarthy has offices in Newport Beach, Sacramento and San Francisco, Calif.; Phoenix; Las Vegas; St. Louis; Dallas and Atlanta.  McCarthy is 100 percent employee owned.  More information about the company is available online at www.mccarthy.com

McCarthy Senior Project Manager Rick Lester thanked attendees who were then invited on an insider’s tour of the new facility to check out the state-of-the-art space. The Dallas County Institute for Forensic Science is a $45 million, 112,000-square-foot project replacing an existing forensic facility and will include a three-story forensics laboratory, a two-story administration area and a one-story autopsy and morgue facility. The forensic facility will combine a family environment for visitors with enhanced security for emergency operations and top-of-the-line teaching and conference capabilities. This is McCarthy’s second project for Dallas County. Construction on the project began in June 2007.

Topping out of the 10-story, 350,000 square foot research facility comes following one-year of construction.  The project is on target for completion in April of 2010.

The facility, named for benefactor Parker H. Petit, will house teaching and research facilities for nearly 6,000 students pursuing various science and nursing degrees.  It will include state-of-the-art dry and wet laboratories, BSL-2 and BSL-3 labs and a BSL-4 suite.  The lab is part of the new University Science Park, located on a three-acre site at Piedmont Avenue and Decatur Street in downtown Atlanta.

“It’s both exciting and gratifying to reach this point in a major construction project,” said Kevin W. Kuntz, McCarthy southeast division president.  “McCarthy’s expertise in complex research facilities has been critical to keeping construction of the Petit Science Center on target.  At the same time, it is hugely rewarding to construct a facility that will significantly impact the learning experience for thousands of students in the years to come, and contribute to Atlanta’s downtown revitalization.”

“McCarthy was able to help overcome some surprises that had real potential to take our project off schedule,” said Robin Morris, GSU’s vice president for research & regents.  “After finding some existing subterranean structures and unsuitable soil beneath what would become the building’s footprint, the team was able to undercut the area and insert new material.  Solid experience helped guide the solution and keep the facility on schedule.”

CUH2A is the architect for the project.

About McCarthy
Founded in 1864, McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. is one of the nation’s oldest and largest privately held construction firms.  The company provides general contracting, construction management, program management and design/build services for healthcare, education, parking, entertainment, retail, laboratory, biotechnical, microelectronic, and industrial facilities; office buildings; tenant interiors; mixed-use; and bridges and highways.  McCarthy is 100 percent employee owned.  More information about the company is available online at www.mccarthy.com.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

“A lot of companies promise you the moon when they are trying to get your job…all I can say is the moon is shining bright over our new Science Center…McCarthy has delivered!”

- Robin Morris, Ph.D., vice president for research and Regents, Professor of Psychology, Georgia State University

In its quest to become one of the nation’s premier urban research universities, Georgia State is building a new University Science Center on its campus in downtown Atlanta.

Named for benefactor Parker H. Petit, this 350,000-square-foot landmark facility will augment laboratory and classroom space with state-of-the-art dry and wet laboratories, BSL-2 and BSL-3 labs and a BSL-4 suite, accommodating the expanding and changing curriculum of this urban campus. For McCarthy and its subcontractors, the project began with a schedule-threatening surprise. During site work, existing subterranean structures and unsuitable soil were discovered beneath most of the building footprint. The team undercut the entire area and replaced the soil with new material enabling foundations and underground utilities to be installed without impacting the schedule. The project has just topped out and is scheduled to complete in April 2010.  Architect: CUH2A, Inc., Atlanta.

“We are genuinely honored to be recognized by both organizations for our work on the UTSW Laboratory Research and Support Building project,” said McCarthy Texas Division President Mike McWay. “We strive to attain excellence in all of our projects, and our work on UTSW spotlights McCarthy’s strong background in building medical research facilities.”

The UTSW Laboratory Research and Support Building is a $25.4-million, four-story, 78,000-square-foot facility providing research and laboratory space to further medical education and research for the 4,200 medical, graduate and allied health students who participate in UTSW graduate programs.

The ABC of North Texas annually recognizes and promotes the outstanding projects built by ABC members on both a local and national level with its Excellence in Construction Awards. McCarthy was awarded the Excellence in Construction Award of Merit in Higher Education in the category for projects valued between $25 million to $100 million. This is the fifth time that McCarthy has received an Excellence in Construction award from ABC of North Texas.  Texas Construction selected the UTSW project as a  “Best of 2008 Award” winner in the higher education category. The “Best of 2008 Awards” is an annual event that celebrates and honors the building teams that create the best projects in Texas.  Winners are selected by an independent jury of industry experts.  The “Best of 2008 Award” winners will be featured in the December 2008 issue of Texas Construction.

About McCarthy
Founded in 1864, McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. is one of the nation’s oldest and largest privately held construction firms.  The company provides general contracting, construction management, program management and design/build services for laboratory, healthcare, education, parking, entertainment, retail, biotechnical, microelectronic, and industrial facilities; office buildings; tenant interiors; mixed-use; and bridges and highways.  McCarthy is 100 percent employee owned.  More information about the company is available online at www.mccarthy.com.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

“Because McCarthy, the design team and all of the subcontractors had a ‘get it done’ attitude, they subsequently constructed a world class cGMP manufacturing facility in record time and on budget.”

— Dick Kalin, engineer II, Sigma-Aldrich

Renovating a pharmaceutical facility originally constructed in the 1940s as a diesel engine manufacturing plant is no easy feat.

Converting the space into the first world-class, large-scale transgenic biopharma manufacturing facility designed for multiproduct use is nothing short of amazing. In the span of eight months and with minimal disruption to ongoing operations, McCarthy phased construction so critical utilities could continue to serve adjacent manufacturing suites. With no interstitial space, all piping, ductwork and conduits were squeezed into the ceiling plenum while maintaining the desired ceiling height for the new facility. Architect/Engineer: Clark Richardson & Biskup (CRB) Consulting Engineers, Inc., St. Louis.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

“Stanley Hall represents the new frontier of bioscience. Working side by side with McCarthy from the onset of design helped us achieve efficiencies on this incredibly complex building.”

- Renee Kajimoto, associate partner, Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects, LLP 

McCarthy recently completed the cornerstone facility for the University of California, Berkeley’s Health Sciences Initiative.

Stanley Hall brings to the university one of the largest and most prestigious educational and research facilities on campus. The $130 million structure is home to the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3), and totals 11 stories and 285,000 square feet. Stanley Hall incorporates seven research themes such as structural biology, bioengineering, chemical biology, computation and theoretical biology, and magnetic imaging. The facility houses the West Coast’s only 900-megahertz nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer, a high-powered device allowing scientists to create images that show the structures of proteins. It also includes a Bio-Nano Technology Center and 40 research and teaching laboratories, classrooms and seminar facilities. Architect: Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects, LLP, Portland, Ore.

GOVERNMENT

“You normally compromise when you go through a VA process. I believe we got everything we wanted.”

— Dan Savage, facilities management, Dallas County

Piles are being driven, foundations are being poured, and a myriad of long-lead specialized equipment is being bought for Dallas’ version of “CSI.”

The $44 million, 112,000-square-foot facility will greatly enhance the County’s forensic capabilities and will include a ballistics testing facility, trace, DNA extraction and drug analysis labs, a one-story medical examiner’s office with a morgue and autopsy equipment, as well as administration areas and conference/teaching space for the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. “We had a very succesful and collaborative value engineering effort. We saved over $3 million without sacrificing any of the building’s required functionality. The cooperation among the McCarthy team, its subs and the architect produces very beneficial results,” said Dallas County’s Dan Savage. Scheduled for completion in April 2009, the project’s major challenge will be the coordination of all MEP elements, those making up more than a 1/3 of the project’s total cost. Architect: HKS, Inc., Dallas, Texas.

RESEARCH/SCIENCE

“The facility’s containment requirements presented the need for a comprehensive commissioning process to ensure the proper function of the structure and systems. The success of this process depended on dedicated teamwork from everyone involved.”

— Donald Jones, chief, Ames Modernization Branch, USDA

The $70 million, 158,000-square-foot High Containment Large Animal Research Facility is the largest BSL-3Ag facility in the world.

 Known as Building 9, it is the USDA’s main center for research, diagnostics and biologics and contains 22 Biosafety Level-3Ag animal rooms used for the study of animal diseases such as brucellosis and tuberculosis, and animal diseases that are foreign to the United States such as heartwater and African horse sickness. The facility presented extraordinary construction challenges. In addition to building an airtight facility in which infectious microorganisms must be contained, systems to contain animals weighing nearly a ton had to be built as well. After extensive mock ups, McCarthy installed a penning and gating system able to withstand a 1,500-pound hit at 35 miles-per-hour so large animals could be moved from one area to another. The system required embeds weighing hundreds of pounds into high-containment concrete without breaching its integrity. From start to finish, the facility was built in 18 months and will soon open its doors to scientists. Architect: Merrick & Company, Aurora, Colo.

UNIVERSITY

“McCarthy’s attention to detail, spirit of collaboration, and plain old simple teamwork made a dream come true for residents of San Mateo County.”

— José D. Nuñez, vice chancellor, facilities planning, maintenance & operations, San Mateo County Community College

The College of San Mateo (CSM) Science Building and Planetarium recently celebrated its completion with a ribbon cutting ceremony.

 The first project to be built on the campus in more than 40 years, it is also the first to be constructed pursuant to California Assembly Bill 1000, which provides guidelines for implementing design-build projects for community college districts. The more than 62,000-square-foot, 3-story science building houses lecture halls, faculty offices and laboratories. The facility also features a planetarium and an observatory with a retractable roof for several fixed telescopes. To accommodate CSM’s aggressive completion schedule, McCarthy used a multi-stage, fast-track process. The first stage included mass excavation, earthwork, site pad preparation and the relocation of the main campus utility lines. The second stage was the completion of the science building. The third stage involved the construction of the planetarium. Design/Build Architect:
LPA Inc., Roseville, Calif.