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Just three years after completing the Bunting-Blaustein Building, The Johns Hopkins University’s (JHU) first building dedicated to cancer research, Clark/Smoot, a joint venture between Clark Construction Group, LLC of Bethesda, Md. and Smoot Construction of Falls Church, Va., recently began work on a second $80 million cancer research facility on JHU’s East Baltimore medical campus. Known as Cancer Research Building II, the 272,000-square-foot structure will be constructed next to the Blunting-Blaustein Building on the north side of Orleans Street between Broadway and Caroline Street.
“We need this facility to accommodate steady growth in numbers of our faculty securing gifts or grants to support the fight against cancer,” said Dr. Edward D. Miller, dean and chief executive officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine.
HDR Architecture of Alexandria, Va., the architect of record for the new project and the Bunting-Blaustein Building, designed the second facility as a mirror image of the first. Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership of Washington, D.C. is serving as the design consultant.
The facility contains five floors of laboratories in the center separated by five levels of mechanical space. This interstitial space makes it easier to modify the laboratories in the future. Two floors of office space line up with every one level of mechanical and laboratory space, resulting in 10 levels of office space at each end of the building.
Also included in the design is an expanded barrier vivarium, BL-3 laboratory space, and support offices. A connector building linking the two towers is featured and will be used as a new loading dock for the southwest area of the campus as well as for shared vivarium and lab functions. The area between the buildings will be landscaped to create a new pedestrian mall equipped with pergolas, benches and fountains.
While the Bunting-Blaustein Building created room for scientists from the Kimmel Cancer Center, the new structure will provide space for scientists from other departments also conducting cancer research - an effort that has become increasingly interdisciplinary.
“It will put different disciplines together in the same building,” said John E. Grinnalds, senior director of facilities management for the JHU School of Medicine. “It creates an opportunity for greater collaboration between the department of oncology and other departments in the school doing cancer-related research.”
The facility is a key element in a $1 billion construction campaign that is expected to transform JHU’s 52-acre East Baltimore medical campus, creating up to 1,000 new jobs over the next decade. Funding was procured from public and private sources, including philanthropy and debt service.
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