"This development program will greatly increase the school's ability to carry out research projects," according to Robert McCulley, vice president of York Hunter Construction Services, Newark. York Hunter's Institutional Division is managing the overall effort.

"We have had a great deal of experience with educational and research construction projects," McCulley adds. Among the specific construction projects he mentions in this case are a new 120,000-sf, four-story research facility for the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and UMDNJ's School of Public Health, to be located on the school's Piscataway campus. Also in Piscataway, UMDNJ is building a new staged research lab annex totaling 20,000 sf.

As far as expansion/renovation projects involved in the school-wide construction project, the school's Kessler Research Tower and teaching labs in Piscataway are getting a major overhaul. Similarly, the Environmental and Occupational Health Science Institute located in Piscataway is getting a 15,000-sf expansion.

On the New Brunswick campus, meanwhile, the Medical Education building is being renovated. All of the various expansion/renovation projects entail major system upgrades.

Construction on the staged research lab annex is just underway, according to McCulley, and is slated to be finished in late summer. The rest of the project's components will begin at various times throughout 2001, and the work should all be completed by the end of next year.

York Hunter is made up of two divisions. The Commercial Division takes care of office, residential and hospitality projects, while the Institutional Division caters to educational, health care, cultural and similar not-for-profit organizations.