ST. LOUIS—St. Louis-based McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. has been selected as construction manager for the $45 million expansion of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, a not-for-profit research institute in Creve Coeur originally built by McCarthy in 2001. The 79,000-square-foot expansion will cost about $45 million and McCarthy will begin construction in early 2014 and shoot for a 2015 opening.
Plans call for building a three-story addition attached to the west side of the Danforth Center's existing building, making room for more than 100 additional researchers. The center currently has 227 employees, including 172 scientists and staff, and attracts about $13 million in grants each year from many sources, including the National Institutes of Health, the US Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Agriculture. The new space will include flexible research laboratories with state-of-the-art equipment as well as core facilities and additional growth chamber space.
“Our work with the biotech industry in St. Louis dates back to the original Danforth Center building project,” says McCarthy Vice President of Science & Technology Kevin Williams, “and it is important for McCarthy to be engaged in this space as it continues to grow and its impact on the shape of the St. Louis region continues to expand. When you have a client whose mission includes 'Feed the hungry and improve human health' it is easy to get out of bed and go work hard on their behalf.”
“The Center's expansion project is a major step in our long range plans to increase our impact through plant science,” says Danforth Center President Dr. James Carrington. “The new addition will improve the capacity for high-level science in crop improvement, bioenergy, sustainable agriculture and plant biology. The new facilities will also help attract the best scientific teams as we expand in the years ahead.”
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
