Capital Initiatives

• Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts and Education Complex
• The Colonnade at the U of U
• Huntsman Cancer Hospital Phase II-B
• New Media Wing in the College of Fine Arts
• College of Nursing Building Renovation
• College of Pharmacy
• College of Science
• Student Housing
• Student Life Center
• The James L. Sorenson Molecular Biotechnology Building - USTAR
• Utah Museum of Natural History at the Rio Tinto Center

College of Science Capital Initiatives

Enhanced laboratory and educational space is essential to attracting top researchers and engaging our best students. The College of Science at the University of Utah is developing two significant structures, the Chemistry Building Annex and the George Thomas Building Renovation, to make these goals reality.

Chemistry Building Annex

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), recognizing the excellence of Utah Chemistry’s faculty and the importance of its advanced biochemical and biophysical research to our nation’s health and economic prosperity, has awarded $8 million toward the cost of constructing a $20 million biochemistry and biophysics research facility at the University of Utah. The University administration has pledged an additional $2 million toward this building, leaving $10 million to be raised from private sources, with a variety of naming opportunities available for such support.

This facility will be an addition onto the south end of the structure currently known as the south tower of the Henry Eyring Building. The proposed new space is approximately 41,000 square-feet gross with a net of 24,000 square-feet and will house a mass spectrometry facility, advanced undergraduate laboratories, imaging and spectroscopy laboratories, biochemistry and organic synthesis laboratories, and the Center for Biophysical Modeling and Simulation.

This project is a wonderful and vital opportunity to enhance an outstanding program:

• Utah Chemistry is one of the nation’s premier chemistry departments with respect to undergraduate education, graduate training, and faculty research excellence.
• A large fraction of the Utah Chemistry faculty engages in fundamental biochemistry and biophysics research that serves as the foundation for advances in medicine and biotechnology.
• Chemistry facilities at Utah are outdated and stretched past capacity. Expansion is crucial in order to maintain Utah Chemistry’s standing as a national leader, to attract more outstanding talent to the University, to improve the training of the next generation of scientists, entrepreneurs, and physicians, and to serve as a catalyst for Utah’s biotechnology industry.

NIH funding requires occupation and use of the new building by July 2014. With the NIH award, this project is “shovel-ready” and can move forward with construction as soon as matching private funds are secured.

George Thomas Building Renovation

The move by the Utah Museum of Natural History to a new facility has opened up a tremendous opportunity for the College of Science to renovate and rejuvenate the historic George Thomas Building on the south side of Presidents Circle. The Thomas Building is well known to many alumni as the former university library and features a classic façade, beautiful central staircase, and great room with a vaulted ceiling. It is intended that these features be preserved while the remaining interior space, including the central “stacks” area, is completely remodeled, and the entire structure undergoes a seismic retrofit.

The newly renovated building will become the crown jewel and headquarters of the College of Science, situated at the center of a north-south axis across lower campus that includes all of the buildings housing the College’s four departments. It will stand opposite the newly renovated Gardner Hall; together the two buildings represent the Arts and Sciences on either side of the main gateway entrance to the university. The building will additionally serve three main purposes:

• First and foremost, it will house teaching facilities for developing introductory and interdisciplinary science and math education at the college level. This facility will be used in close coordination with the Center for Science and Math Education already established jointly by the Colleges of Science and Education. In this facility the College will foster experimental development and implementation of new and innovative techniques for teaching introductory science courses.
• It will house the Center for Cell and Genome Science, an innovative and interdisciplinary research center bringing together physicists, biologists, and other scientists to study the intricacies of cell mechanics at the molecular scale.
• It will house an incubator for science-based industrial companies, in which scientists in the college can, where appropriate, work directly with industrial scientists and engineers on pilot projects of mutual interest.

Total cost of the project is expected to be about $75 million, of which $20 million is to be raised from private sources, with a variety of naming opportunities available for such support. A significant fraction of the total cost is expected to come from the state legislature, due to the strong educational component to the purpose of this renovation. It is anticipated that construction will be completed by sometime in 2014.

For more information about these College of Science capital projects or to find out how your gifts can support the College of Science at the University of Utah, please contact Jeff Driggs at (801) 581-4719 or driggs@biology.utah.edu.