UI Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building to be done in 2014

One of the largest construction projects in University of Iowa history is in the home stretch, set to open in less than one year to house cutting-edge research.

The $126.6 million Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building is slated to open in June 2014. It is the third of three buildings that were part of a master plan to modernize Carver College of Medicine facilities, said Rod Lehnertz, director of campus planning, design and construction. It completes that triangle of buildings, along with the Medical Education and Research Facility and the Carver Biomedical Research Building, along Newton Road.

"It completes a master plan for that area that was developed in the late 1990s," Lehnertz said, noting the building is under budget and on schedule. "It's as large a project as we'll do in managing the construction ourselves."

At the time of its planning, the Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building was the largest single project at the UI, Lehnertz said, but it will be topped by three new under-construction projects: Hancher Auditorium, the School of Music and the Children's Hospital.

Also notable about the Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building: it was the last building designed by noted architect Charles Gwathmey, of Gwathmey Siegel and Associates Architects of New York. Gwathmey, who also designed the UI's Levitt Center, passed away shortly after completing the design for the Pappajohn Biomedical building, Lehnertz said.

"It is historic on that front," he said. "It was really the final major design by Charles Gwathmey."

The building, with six floors of research labs, has a total of 256,000 square feet, a number that includes 31,000 square feet of shelled space underground, in the courtyard area created by the three buildings, that eventually will be used for research support space, said Rob Young, the UI's construction manager on the project. Young and two other UI construction management staff are assigned to this project, for which the contract was awarded in August 2010.

Roughly one and a half floors of the new building will be dedicated to the Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center, funded by a $25 million gift from that organization. The center will be a home for research into the causes, prevention and treatment of diabetes. Obesity, a parallel epidemic, also will be studied, officials said.

"They have objectives to cure diabetes in that building, so we look at the building to be one, hopefully, that is historical on a couple of fronts in the future," Lehnertz said.

UI researchers have been invited to submit proposals to fill other open research space in the building. The new facility will house researchers aligned with several strategic priority areas, including diabetes, the Iowa Institute of Biomedical Imaging and possibly neurosciences, cardiovascular research, genetics and cancer.

About 500 employees will work in the building, depending on the final configuration of the labs and animal facilities, UI officials said. It will be a mix of new and existing researchers and staff.

"The best science is interdisciplinary in nature. Our goal for the facility is to engage faculty from other areas of the campus: medicine, engineering, arts and sciences, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy and others as part of large thematic groups tackling our key strategic research initiatives," Carver College of Medicine Dean Debra Schwinn said in an email.