The Chemistry of FSU’s Chemistry Building

Information Sharing, Partnering Foundation for FSU’s New Facility

By Angelle Bergeron

The completion in January of Florida State University’s new chemistry building in Tallahassee will allow FSU to expand its research and educational capabilities, as well as tap into the emerging life sciences field, one of the hottest markets in the country and a major focus of Florida politicians and other officials attempting to diversify the state’s future economy. A joint venture of Charlotte, N.C.-based BE&K Building Group and Ajax Building Corp. of Tallahassee is finishing up the $63.3 million, five-story, 168,000-sq-ft facility, which will house portions of FSU’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

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The building will provide flexible laboratory space that can accommodate multiple disciplines in the field of life sciences research, an industry that attracts technology, research, pharmaceutical, mechanical design and other related businesses.

“The way you solve problems today is with a multidisciplinary approach,” says Kirby Kemper, FSU’s vice president for research. “With this building, we are trying to foster collaboration between different types of chemists, so we are mixing up labs with people who have different expertise.”The existing FSU chemistry building, which was constructed about 40 years ago, had become antiquated and crowded, says Daryl Ellison, FSU’s associate director for facilities planning and construction. Additionally, the 150,000-sq-ft building was largely dedicated to synthetic organic chemistry, which earned the university and its research scientists a reputation, and millions of dollars, for discovering cutting-edge cancer treatments.

However, future research is dependent upon collaboration of various disciplines, Kemper says. “Science changes at the speed of light, and today, other fields of chemistry now offer a much broader range of approaches to fighting cancer and other diseases,” he said in a press release describing the building’s focus.

The focus on a multidisciplinary approach has been a basic part of FSU’s vision for the project from the beginning. FSU Professor Robert A. Holton, who had discovered a synthetic version of a hugely popular cancer treatment drug, had attempted to sway the university from that vision by donating $11 million to the project and requiring a focus on his area of expertise. Ultimately, he failed, however, and FSU returned the $11 million gift and stuck to its multidisciplinary approach.

As did the contractors, the project’s architects partnered as well. JRA Architects of Tallahassee assisted lead partner O’Brien Atkins Associates of Research Triangle Park, N.C., during the design phase and took the lead during the construction phase, says David Vincent, JRA’s senior vice president. FSU chose JRA to help design the new chemistry building in 2002. More than 95% of JRA’s work is with school districts, colleges, state agencies, municipalities and the military, and the firm has designed four previous projects for FSU.

O’Brien Atkins has a lot of life science and information technology experience that made the firm attractive to JRA, says Jeffery Bottomley, project architect and designer.

Like any laboratory or information technology project, the FSU chemistry building required a great deal of mechanical, electrical and plumbing coordination, Bottomley says. But the real challenge “is to develop flexible buildings, something that will be of use to the university and researchers in the future,” he adds. “The world is changing, so the science they are wanting to do in the future, they don’t even know what that is yet.”

How that translated into the FSU building design has more to do with the function of the interior than the actual construction methods or external aesthetics of the building. The reinforced concrete structure, with a structural steel mechanical penthouse and exterior cast stone and brick veneer was designed to reflect the campus’ prevailing Jacobean architecture. It was sited in the science corridor, an area congested with several buildings and the campus tennis courts, so the entrance would be on an axis with the existing chemistry building, Bottomley says.

“Both buildings will be operational, and the university’s goal is eventually to renovate and modernize the old building,” Ellison says.

The function was the main driver of the design, and incorporating the MEP and 160 low flume hoods wasn’t easy, Bottomley says. (Low flume hoods evacuate harmful vapors that may be produced in a laboratory.)

“We had to start one sub with utilities at the highest point, then move floor-to-floor and each behind the next to make sure there weren’t any interferences,” says Mark Hefferin, BE&K’s executive vice president in charge of the FSU project. “Gas and waste lines had to be sloped and extensive amounts of stainless steel ductwork had to have extensive coordination.”

The physical restrictions of the site required the contractor to pay extra attention to rerouting student traffic, organizing remote laydown areas and coordinating certain activities during low-traffic or nonpeak class hours.

“We constructed the building through some tight logistics with two tower cranes and had to bring in all materials in sequential order without blocking roadways,” Hefferin says. The building is about 40 ft. from the fence enclosing the campus tennis courts.

“We had two tower cranes that we had to keep swinging over the tennis courts at all times, and those could be a little intimidating,” Hefferin says.

Safety of the student body and administrative staff were of constant, primary concern, he adds. “We did have to rechannel some of the walk paths, and we fenced in the site,” Hefferin says. “Due to the space restrictions, we worked with a lot of local contractors who did just-in-time manufacturing.”

Because the new building is being constructed on the site of a former parking lot, extensive utility relocation was required before drilling the supporting concrete caissons to a 40-ft depth.

“We had to keep the utilities operational so other parts of the campus were not subjected to power outages, chill water loss, gas line disruptions and things of that nature,” Hefferin says. Close coordination with FSU’s Ellison and his staff helped facilitate critical tasks on the evenings and weekends when they would have the least impact.

With a quickly approaching completion date, the contractor has already made operational all the mechanical systems in the building and is currently finalizing the installation of lab equipment and placing architectural finishes.

The FSU project reflects a reverse path of the way the life sciences market developed in North Carolina, Hefferin says, where three universities within a 20-mi radius of the Research Triangle Park served as breeder schools for the private industries located in the park, Hefferin says.

Florida, through projects like the building at FSU, is concentrating on the workforce development end of the equation, hoping to attract supporting business development.

Indeed, the new building and its versatile potential will attract academic research-related commercial opportunities, says Russell Allen, president of BioFlorida, the state’s bioscience industry trade association that works on linking industry and academia.

“It definitely attracts businesses who are interested in a region because of a more highly qualified workforce and paves the way for more collaborative aspects between the university and business,” Allen says. “Technology discoveries within labs of universities also tend to create spin-out companies.”

Other construction projects related to life sciences are likely on the horizon for Florida as educational institutions scramble to keep up with the growing demand, he says.

“It would be hard for you to find a university not expanding its bioscience department,” Allen adds. “Even community colleges are enhancing their bioscience programs. They are finding they need to in order to meet the demands of the workforce and the demands of their students.”