The Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) approved last week the University of Arizona (UA) Research Building plans for a 245,000-square-foot, 10-story building on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus for $136 million ($555 PSF). ABOR voted to use the last of the Stimulus Plan for Economic and Educational Development bonds that the Arizona Legislature originally approved in 2008. That bond money was also used to pay for the Health Sciences Education Building, which is just south of where the new building will be built near Seventh and Fillmore streets in Phoenix on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus.
Permanent jobs to be created in Phoenix will be 360 as a result of this new research center, called the Biosciences Partnership Building. On the bioscience campus master site plan it originally was going to be called the ABC II building. The first ABC I building is nestled between the University of Arizona College of Medicine buildings and another research building anchored by the Translational Genomics Research Institute.
The new building is being designed by CO Architects of California and Ayers Saint Gross of Phoenix, while a joint venture between DPR Construction of Phoenix and Sundt Construction also of Phoenix will serve as construction manager.
Plans call for breaking ground by the end of this year. It is expected to take about 26 months to complete, creating an additional 500 jobs in design and construction in Phoenix.
Plans are also in the works to build another building between the Arizona Biosciences College (ABC I) and TGen structures. This is in addition to the $100 million outpatient cancer center currently under construction at the southwest corner of Fillmore and Seventh streets in Phoenix. That 220,000-square-foot structure is the University of Arizona’s Cancer Center at Dignity Health’s St. Joseph’s, and is scheduled to be finished July 2015 on the Biomendical Campus in Phoenix.