Feds Greenlight Construction for $1.25 Billion National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Kansas

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Reported by Annette Kreuger, Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--After almost a decade of planning, construction is set to begin this spring on the $1.25 billion National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan, Kansas. Earlier this month, lawmakers approved the remaining $300 million needed to build the nearly 600,000-square-foot research facility, located adjacent to the Kansas State University campus.

Operating under a partnership between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal Research Service (ARS), the NBAF will be filled with elaborate laboratories ranging in biosafety levels (BSL) 1 through 4.

The focus of study at the center will be on integrated human, foreign animal and zoonotic diseases, as well as the development and small-scale production of large livestock vaccines. BSL-4 labs will research the most lethal of diseases and germs.

The NBAF will replace the aging Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC) in New York. For more than 50 years, the PIADC has served as the nation's primary facility to conduct this research. However, PIADC has neared the end of its life‐cycle and needs to be replaced in order to meet U.S. research requirements and ensure the timely development of countermeasures in the event of an outbreak.

An 87,000-squeare-foot, stand-alone central utility plant (CUP) is under construction at the NBAF site, and will support the new NBAF. The plant will house the primary heating and cooling systems for the adjacent laboratory, as well as diesel generators for supplying emergency power to the facility. Construction of the CUP is expected to be completed in the fall of 2015.

The project team includes designers Perkins + Will (Atlanta, Georgia) and a joint venture by McCarthy and Mortenson (McMjv) as construction managers. The NBAF is targeted to be complete, fully commissioned and operational in 2021.

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