Summer 1999 · Department Homepage

New Building Being Constructed
By Wayne Repko

The new Biomedical and Physical Sciences Research Center will be located just west of the Biochemistry Building on a site extending north from Wilson Road toward the Chemistry Building. It will be connected above ground to both buildings by enclosed overhead walkways and at the basement level. Construction costs are estimated at $92 million.

The Physics-Astronomy research space will be located in the basement, which will contain 21 condensed matter physics research laboratories, including a large clean room facility, and on the first floor, which will house high energy physics and astrophysics labs and the mechanical and electronics shops. The teaching facilities will include three lecture rooms with capacities of about 300, 180 and 65 students. Entrances to these rooms will be located in the atrium area. In addition to the lecture rooms, there will be eight undergraduate teaching labs, two regular classrooms and a large space for undergraduate help sessions. The Physics- Astronomy library, enlarged to hold Chemistry and Biomedical collections, will be located on the atrium opposite the large lecture rooms. All current P-A departmental office space will be located in the new building; NSCL faculty will remain at the Cyclotron Lab. The Department office will be located on the fourth floor of the office tower, with faculty offices on the third and fourth floors. The Undergraduate office will be on the first floor near the building’s main entrance. There will also be an Astronomy observing and control room in the atrium, where real time observing at various remote telescopes can be analyzed.

The anticipated completion date for the project is January 2002. A virtual reality video has been prepared and can be viewed in Real Video format. A real-time camera is recording construction and can be viewed at http://theo08.nscl.msu.edu/ConCam/hilites.htm