$149 mil. bio research facilities due by 1999

Construction of the University Medical Center's two new biomedical research facilities is on schedule and on budget. Biomedical Research Buildings Nos. 2 and 3 will be completed by April 1999 at a total cost of approximately $149 million, according to Health System Chief Financial Officer John Wynne. The buildings -- which will contain 264,000 square feet of laboratory space dedicated to the study of DNA, molecular investigation and the Institute for Human Gene Therapy -- are located in the Medical Center area behind the Quadrangle. "These are state of the art facilities which will increase the visibility of the research being done here," Wynne said. The new buildings will help bring in research grants and other funding to improve the financial situation of the services component of the University's Health System, which is projected to lose $78 million in fiscal year 1998, Wynne said. The services component includes every part of the Health System except for the Medical School. The two buildings are part of Medical Center administrators' 1991 master plan to improve its facilities. The first part of the plan was designed to meet the Medical School's expanding research needs by building three new biomedical research buildings on land the University acquired when the old Philadelphia General Hospital closed in the 1980s. BRB No. 1 was completed and renamed the Stellar-Chance Laboratories in spring 1995. But in December 1995, controversy arose over the zoning classification of the land where BRB No. 2 was to be constructed. The plot was designated on city maps and deeds as an area zoned for residential use -- and therefore not appropriate for the construction of an academic research facility -- but the Philadelphia City Council unanimously approved a zoning ordinance change allowing construction to proceed. The new facilities will provide space for "an expansion of the research activities that are conducted in the Stellar-Chance Laboratories," according to Medical Center Vice President for Architecture and Facilities Management Steven Wiesenthal. The second part of the 1991 master plan was designed to meet the Medical Center's space constraints, particularly a shortage of available parking spaces for Health System employees. As one result of the plan, University officials initiated programs to bus Children's Hospital of Philadelphia employees into the area from a parking facility in the Grays Ferry section of Southwest Philadelphia.