Organized Labor

DPR: Complexity of Project Required Use of Union Labor

By Paul Burton
Contributing Writer

DPR is developing and constructing the $123 million, 67,000-sq.-ft. Institute for Regeneration Medicine at the UC San Francisco Parnassus campus. DPR’s Project Manager Martin Vegas said there were currently about 150 construction trades workers on the all-union job, including carpenters, operating engineers, laborers, sheet metal workers, ironworkers, plumbers, sprinklerfitters, glaziers, roofers, cement masons, insulators and electrical workers. He said that, “The magnitude and complexity of the job dictated that we use union subcontractors.”

The project’s location at the edge of a steep hillside presents a challenge in the construction of the foundation system and general access to the site. Groundbreaking for the 46,283 square foot building took place in late August 2008, with completion of the project scheduled for mid-2010. A “topping off” ceremony highlighting the erection of the last structural steel beam was held in September. Subcontractors include Malcolm Drilling, Cupertino Electric, ACCO, Royal Glass, Pacific State Excavators and Cosco Fire Protection.

The building is among 12 building projects funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). The CIRM is funded in part through the sale of bonds by the state that were approved by voters in 2004 under Proposition 71, to advance stem cell research. The UCSF facility will support 24 UCSF scientists and their teams in their goal to understand the basic biology of stem cells and to translate those discoveries into medical therapies for presently incurable diseases and debilitating injuries, according to the University.

The facility will feature laboratories and laboratory support and office spaces, located on a series of split-level floors with terraced grass green roofs and solar orientation. Open labs flow into each other, with office and lounge areas located on the circulation route between the labs, promoting interaction for the entire research community in the building. The contractor said the building will be “base isolated” and seismically designed to move a maximum of 26 inches laterally during a significant earthquake with little or no damage.

Touted as a “green research facility,” the 75,000-square-foot structure is designed by New York architect Rafael Vinoly, and seeking Silver LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. The design/build team has set a goal to reduce the building’s energy load by a targeted 20 percent below California Title 24 requirements. They are using energy modeling—a computer-based tool to simulate the energy use of the facility. The energy model will enable the creation of different scenarios to help the team better predict potential usage and enhance overall energy efficiency, according to DPR and UCSF.

DPR’s Project Engineer said the project may meet LEED Gold certification standards. The building will feature low-flow water fixtures, a daylight sensor to control lighting, natural lighting, 100 percent outside air for ventilation, and other energy efficient systems. Over 75 percent of construction debris is being recycled.

The project also uses the latest design and construction tools and methodology, including building information modeling (BIM) and integrated project delivery (IPD). A DPR statement said that, “The core team is taking an integrated approach for this momentous project, drawing upon the principles of lean construction and using the latest BIM technologies to meet the schedule and budget and deliver a world-class green facility for breakthrough scientific research.”

The University says that the building will house 250 researchers and staff, including 18 principal investigators, tasked with advancing the emerging field of stem cell research. Some scientists from other UCSF campuses will be relocated to the building, freeing up space in existing laboratories/offices that will allow for additional recruitments. UCSF has recruited 16 new faculty members to the Institute in the last three years. The new facility will enhance efforts to develop new treatments for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Parkinson’s disease, HIV/AIDS and cancer.

In addition to $34.8 million from the CIRM, the project has received major funding from private donors. Dagmar Dolby, wife of Ray Dolby of Dolby Laboratories (the inventor of the Dolby noise reduction system), gave UCSF $16 million in 2006 and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation chipped in $25 million in December 2008. UCSF is continuing a fundraising campaign to raise the final $31 million toward construction costs.

UCSF Chancellor J. Michael Bishop said the donations by the Dolbys and the Broad Foundation would maximize the potential of scientists to develop cell-based therapies for presently incurable diseases. The Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine, David A. Kessler, MD, said the donations “will help enable UCSF and its scientists to make discoveries that could ultimately lead to treatments for traumatic and degenerative disorders and provide important insights into a wide range of diseases and conditions.”

“Eli and Edythe Broad have shown extraordinary generosity and vision with this gift,” said UCSF Chancellor Bishop. “Discoveries in the medical sciences result from rigorous inquiry, creative thinking and, sometimes, serendipity. They also result from the proximity of scientists working on similar problems from different angles. Nowhere is this more true than in the stem cell field. The Broad’s gift will directly advance this effort.”

“Scientists have made significant headway in understanding the basic biology of stem cells in recent years, and UCSF scientists have been at the forefront of these efforts,” said Eli Broad, founder of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. “The UCSF center’s headquarters will be a world-class facility that will enable scientists to accelerate their research, by bringing some of the world’s leading stem cell scientists together under one roof and providing them with a setting that promotes collaboration and an exchange of ideas, both key to making clinical advances to improve human health.”

The facility will serve as the core of a research program that will continue to extend throughout UCSF, encompassing 125 labs exploring the earliest stages of animal and human development, mechanisms of organ repair, immune rejection, biomaterials, and cancer, with an eye toward clinical therapies, according to a UCSF press release. The building will be connected by an enclosed walking bridge to inpatient and outpatient clinics at UCSF Medical Center, supporting the long-term goal of translating basic research findings to clinical trials.
UCSF was one of two U.S. universities, along with the University of Wisconsin, that pioneered the human embryonic stem cell field in the 1990s. Under former president George W. Bush’s stem cell policy scientists were prohibited from conducting stem cell research in federally-funded buildings, so UCSF scientists were forced to carry out their research in challenging circumstances—first in segregated space within an existing UCSF lab, later in rented space at an off-campus site and subsequently 40 miles away at Geron Corp. in Menlo Park.

“The objective of the building is to foster intensive collaboration and a cross-pollination of ideas across a broad spectrum of labs and disciplines,” said Arnold Kriegstein, MD, PhD, UCSF Institute for Regeneration Medicine director. “The building presents an extremely exciting opportunity that will allow us to move scientists now scattered across several locations into scientific ‘neighborhoods’ within a single site, enabling them to work closely on common scientific problems and allowing for the use of shared core facilities.” Scientists working to create insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells to treat diabetes will be together in so-called “clusters,” but they will also be based near a cluster of researchers working to create neurons to treat such brain diseases as Parkinson’s disease.

The 107-acre Parnassus campus is home to graduate professionals in dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy, a graduate division for predoctoral and postdoctoral scientists. It was built in 1897 on land originally contributed by Adolph Sutro, former mayor of San Francisco.

DPR is also the GC for the new Medical Center at Mission Bay which will serve as a third major site for UCSF patient care.