The center is at 1600 Clifton Rd. in northeast Atlanta, DeKalb County. McCarthy Building Cos. Inc. completed the project on a scheduled four-year track that began in October 2001. BSL-4 labs are considered the highest-containment facilities in existence, according to Edward H. Stehmeyer Jr., director of CDC's facilities, planning and management office.

"McCarthy was selected for the firm's experience and thorough understanding of high-containment lab construction and delivered the extra coordination necessary to build a state-of-the-art, secure facility," Stehmeyer says. The Atlanta office of CUH2A, a Chicago-based architectural firm, was the project architect. Locally based Smith, Carter designed the BSL-4 spaces.

Besides the 12-story lab, the project includes an attached five-story facility. The combined facilities include Biosafety levels 2 and 3 labs, adjacent office areas, analytical equipment labs, molecular biology suites and a central glass washing facility. More than 450 researchers will work in the two structures.

McCarthy currently has more than $800 million in construction contracts for laboratories throughout the US, including a BSL-4 facility on the campus of Boston University and a BSL-3 agriculture facility for the US Department of Agriculture in Ames, IA.