June 5, 2013

UW Medicine 3.1 is opening in SLU

Image courtesy of UW Medicine [enlarge]

The seven-story building at 750 Republican St. has compact floors that encourage people to interact.

People are still moving into the University of Washington's newest medical facility — known as UW Medicine Phase 3.1 — but the space is already making a difference for some researchers and doctors.

Dr. Grant Hughes, an assistant professor in the rheumatology division, used to work in the health sciences building on the UW campus. The space there is functional, but it's older and inefficient. Grant said his department was too far away from others that it needed to collaborate with.

The new seven-story building at 750 Republican St. in South Lake Union has floors that are compact and easily accessible, encouraging people from various departments to interact.

“That little physical distance was holding back collaboration,” he said. “We weren't eating lunch together. This is where collaboration happens.”

Getting people together was a key piece of the design. Instead of small lab spaces where researchers are tucked away, each floor has a large, open lab space as well as specialized rooms.

The labs are secured by glass panels. Outside the labs are desks where researchers can take a break and get coffee without having to go too far or risk contaminating work spaces.

Eventually 400 researchers will work in the 183,000-square-foot building. The departments include immunology, rheumatology, kidney research, infectious disease treatment and prevention, and vision sciences.

These divisions are working to cure ailments as well as prevent them. At the vision clinic, researchers are working on a way to prevent nearsightedness in children. The immunology department is researching vaccines for mosquito-born illnesses such as West Nile virus and dengue fever.

Several public officials and representatives from the developer, Vulcan Real Estate, emphasized the importance of the project during a tour Tuesday. Because of having many small rooms and other unique features it was no easy feat to get permits, public officials said. But City Councilmember Richard Conlin said UW Medicine's presence here along with other bio-tech companies could lead to great things for medical research and the city as a whole.

“This is a place where people with ideas, and people who like to think about things, and people who like to create things, are talking to each other and creating that climate that builds the future of our city,” Conlin said.

Innovation also happens outside the building. The jagged exterior could become a familiar design element in South Lake Union. Architect Perkins+Will, which designed the first two phases of the UW's South Lake Union campus, plans to use a similar curtain wall on future buildings as a common feature.

A public plaza connects the new building with the first two phases of the UW's South Lake Union campus. Gustafson Guthrie Nichol was the landscape architect.

The building was financed through $165 million in tax-exempt bonds secured by the National Development Council, a nonprofit that helps finance projects.

Sellen Construction Co. was the general contractor. Other team members are: Magnusson Klemencic Associates, structural engineer; Coughlin Porter Lundeen, civil engineer; and Affiliated Engineers Inc., mechanical and electrical engineer.

Two more buildings, known as Phases 3.2 and 3.3 with a total of 359,000 square feet, could be built on the same block, bringing UW Medicine's South Lake Union campus to more than 900,000 square feet.