Construction has officially begun on the Lewis Integrative Science Building.
The $65 million building, being constructed along Franklin Boulevard, east of Huestis Hall, is expected to be completed in summer 2012 and be open for operation in fall 2012. The building will be the home to brain, molecular technology, nanotechnology and solar research, and will utilize state-of-the-art facilities. The 100,000-square-foot, five-story-high building will house 46 faculty offices, as well as office space for graduate and post-doctoral students, 10 collaboration and meeting spaces and more than 30,000 square feet of laboratory space for life and materials sciences.
Project manager Mark Butler, from construction company Lease Crutcher Lewis, hopes the building will receive a United States Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) platinum ranking. The Lillis Business Complex on campus was the first building in the Eugene-Springfield area to be awarded LEED certification. In 2006, the city of Eugene began requiring new city buildings larger than 10,000 square feet to be LEED silver equivalent, according to a 2009 Register-Guard article.
The Lewis building will incorporate a sustainable design through features like solar hot water, a glass exterior, bamboo and low volatile organic compound carpets and paint, which have a lower odor and less impact on air quality than higher VOC-content paints and carpets.
“We get the opportunity to take the University’s dream of an integrative science complex and work with the team and take that dream and make it reality,” operations manager Matt Pearson said.
Thomas Hacker, principle architect with THA Architecture Inc. and former member of University architecture faculty, was hired on the project in 2008. THA Architecture Inc. and HDR Architecture Inc. were the principle designers on the project.
“Most importantly, we believe if our efforts have really truly been successful, the place that we are all here making will lead to significant new insights in the extraordinary science which is done by the people here at the University,” Hacker said.
The building is funded by state bonds, federal grants, and private donations. The Oregon Legislature allocated $30 million in state bonds for the Lewis Integrative Science Building. Lorry Lokey, Beverly Lewis and Bill Swindells made private donations for the new science building.
University President Richard Lariviere, Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies Rich Linton, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden and private donors attended the groundbreaking ceremony last Thursday at the Lokey Laboratories.
“It will couple disciplines, academic departments, programs (and) centers in ways the University hasn’t previously done,” Linton said at the ceremony. “What that will allow us to do is really cross-connect to explore solutions and ideas that relate to the grand challenges of our time, whether it be human health, environment, etc. The Lewis Building will thus be an incubator for new discovery.”
University administrators stressed the potential of the new building for research and academic progress.
“The new Lewis Integrative Science Building, coupled with Lokey Laboratories, will accelerate our scientific progress by years, perhaps even decades,” Lariviere said.
[email protected]