To be built on Gayley Road, adjacent to the campus's East Gate, the 285,000-sf building will house the Bioengineering, Biotechnology and Quantitative Biomedical Research Institute, better known to those on campus as QB3. The 11 story structure will have eight floors above ground and three below.

The project, which will replace the existing Stanley Hall, is one of the largest building projects the university has undertaken in recent years. The new facility will support seven research themes that will intermingle scientists from a range of disciplines, such as structural biology, bioengineering, chemical biology, computation and theoretical biology, and magnetic imaging.

Moreover, the building will house the West Coast's only 900-megahertz nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer, a high-powered device that allows scientists to create images that show the structures of proteins. It will also include a Bio-Nano Technology Center and 40 research and teaching laboratories that can each staff between 10 and 20 scientists, as well as support functions, such as classrooms and seminar facilities.

Sources at UC Berkeley tell GlobeSt.com that the bulk of the funding for the project, more than $90 million, is from private gifts. Another $35 million is from the state's general fund and state-issued revenue bonds, and $15 million is from bonds that will be sold by the University itself. Most of the remaining $20 million or so is coming from the state's fund for seismic retrofitting.

The general contractor for the project is McCarthy Building Cos., which has performed work at University of California campuses in Davis, Irvine and San Francisco. McCarthy was awarded the project by UC Berkeley through a professional services interview process rather than the traditional hard bid process.

Demolition of the existing building is underway or complete, and excavation is expected to be underway by the end of the month. In addition to McCarthy, the project team includes: Portland, OR-based Gunsul Frasca Partnership of Portland, Ore., the architect of record; Bard, Rao + Athanas Consulting Engineers Inc. of Boston, the MEP consultant; and Rutherford & Chekene of San Francisco, the structural engineer.

Instant Insights /

Work Set to Start on $162M Biosciences Research Facility

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