LA JOLLA, CA-Bringing another research facility to the burgeoning bio-tech market in San Diego, Lankford & Associates Inc. and Phelps Development say they have finished work on a 150,700-square-foot biomedical research laboratory.

The building will be occupied by the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, a nonprofit consortium of five research institutions engaged in life sciences research: the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the Scripps Research Institute, the Sanford/Burnham Medical Research Institute, the University of California, San Diego, and the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology.

The facility will “serve as the hub of San Diego’s stem cell research community,” according to a statement from Lankford & Associates.

The Landkford-Phelps team was chosen to develop the new building in a competition that required the developers to assemble a design and construction team, in addition to providing development services. The partnership also provided predevelopment financing for the four-story, cast-in-place concrete structure, with an adjoining one-story conference center.

In its design concept, the building is intended to serve as a “collaboratory,” or a research building that seeks to encourage a creative exchange of ideas among biologists, physicians, engineers, physicists, chemists, computer scientists and bio-ethicists, according to the Lankford statement.

The architect is Fentress Architects of Denver, in association with Davis Davis Architects of San Diego and Jacobs Consultancy.

Other members of the development team include general contractor Hensel Phelps Construction Co., three engineering firms--Hope Engineering, Project Design Consultants and Exp--all of San Diego,  and landscape architect Civitas Inc. of Denver.  

The new facility includes office space, open labs and specialized lab cores with advanced imaging, robotics, and analysis facilities for proteins and nucleic acids. A number of cantilevered office pods offer ocean views, as well as those of the Torrey Pines Gliderport and Golf Course. In an effort to encourage collegiality among researchers from various disciplines, two-story break rooms are accessible on all floors. An adjoining conference center features a 150-seat auditorium, conference rooms and a caf