June 17, 2024

UW seeks teams for $191M Chemical Sciences Building

Photo via University of Washington [enlarge]

UW plans to replace this building with a new roughly 100,000-square-foot facility for the Department of Chemistry.

The University of Washington is planning to replace the Chemistry Library at its Seattle campus with a new Chemical Sciences Building (CSB), and is seeking both an architect and design-build team for the project.

The university today issued a solicitation for letters of interest from leading design firms interested in providing services for the project. It also issued a solicitation for statements of qualifications (SOQ) from qualified general contractor design-builders (which may include joint ventures) to design and construct the new facility. Both the letters of interest notice and the SOQ solicitation appear in today's DJC.

The approved budget for the CSB is $191 million. Most of the funding ($130 million) comes from the state. The rest will be funded through the UW College of Arts and Sciences and donors. The target budget for the design/build contract is around $147 million.

The building would be delivered using the design-build project delivery model, meaning university stakeholders would first select a builder, then collaborate with the selected builder and the UW Architectural Commission to develop a short list of design firms based on the qualities they are looking for in a design partner and project-specific experience.

The scope is to replace the current Chemistry Library with a new facility with between 100,000 to 110,000 square feet. The existing building was built in 1957 and is around 39,400 square feet.

The CSB is projected to include wet labs, high-performing labs, research offices, collaboration spaces, general assignment classrooms, and support spaces and will co-locate faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students to facilitate innovation and interdisciplinary discovery in chemical sciences research. UW says the facility would “enable a new mode of science where cutting-edge fundamental chemical research can transform into real-world applications in real-time.”

Department of Chemistry programs are currently located in the Chemistry Library and at Bagley Hall, which is located across Okanogan Lane from the library. Bagley faces Drumheller Fountain.

UW's The Daily newspaper reports that the intent is to connect the new CSB to Bagley Hall with a skybridge. The Daily adds that Bagley is also slated to get a partial renovation.

SOQs from design-builders are due no later than 3 p.m. on July 12. Letters of interest from design firms are due by July 15 at 3 p.m.

Design of the building is expected to begin in January 2025 with construction projected to start in 2026. The current anticipated completion date is 2028.