Major progress made on reconstruction front

New six-story building to take place of John Freeman Building

by Darla Brown

The dream of bringing The University of Texas Medical School at Houston back better than it was before Tropical Storm Allison hit in June 2001 has progressed into a reality over the past year.

Researchers are working in the new imaging suite on the ground floor, the pink granite and aquarium glass perimeter wall is nearly complete, and the new main entrance on the Webber Plaza side of the building is open. The new leather lounge is open and the Learning Resource Center and gross anatomy lab will be open in time for the fall 2004 entering class.

The new leather lounge is open for business in the ground floor of the Medical School Building.

“Seeing the building take shape is a very exciting and rewarding process,” said Interim Dean Stanley Schutlz, M.D. “The amount of work that has gone into this project is incredible. Just one example is the fact that more than 60 dump trucks of dirt had to be hand excavated from the basement due to an unforeseen high-voltage line that was discovered.”

New emergency exits from the building have been created and submarine doors, flood doors and gates have been installed and tested as part of the mitigation aspect of the building. The flood door can withstand a height of approximately 7 feet of water, which is higher than the 500-year flood plan of 47 feet above sea level.

The building in front of the School, which housed the cyclotron will be the home to the Office of Environmental Health and Safety.

The vivarium, which was originally located in the School’s basement, will get a brand-new home as the top two floors of a new six-story research/vivarium building that will replace the John Freeman Building. Originally, plans were to build the vivarium on top of the main Medical School Building, however, the cost and disruption to the School were prohibitive.

Workers construct the granite and glass wall that encircles the Medical School Building.

The proposed 208,500 gross square feet research and vivarium building will cost an estimated $55.53 million and is expected to be finished by September 2006. Just one of the four wet-lab floors will be built out upon the building’s completion, with plans to build out the remaining shelled floors when necessary funds becomes available.

“Having shelled floors allows us to build the size of building we want without needing the money in hand to build out each floor. We don’t have enough money to build out a six-story building at this time, but we can’t be short-sighted and build a smaller building. The remaining floors will be completed once we raise the money either through generous donors or grants,” Dr. Schultz explained.

Plans for relocating the current John Freeman Building occupants are under way, with a goal to have the building emptied by the end of fall 2004 so that it may be demolished in January 2005.

“This is a very exciting development in our post-Allison reconstruction program,” Schultz said. “The faculty, staff, and students have had their patience tested throughout this time, and I am pleased to say that we are moving forward and will soon have a great new building in which to grow.”

The new building’s lab space will be home to four areas of research focus: structural biology, developmental neurobiology, functional (physiological) genomics, and molecular biology of human pathogens.