DAVIE, FLA. — Nova Southeastern University (NSU) has broken ground on its new $80 million Center for Collaborative Research at the institution’s main campus in Davie, a suburb of Miami. ANF Group is serving as general contractor on the six-story, 215,000-square-foot research facility.
The building, designed by architecture firm ACAI Associates, will include wet labs, technology incubator space and an IBM supercomputer nicknamed “Megalodon.” The moniker refers to a prehistoric shark and hearkens to the school’s mascot, the Sharks.
“This university will be in an elite status of research throughout the nation,” says George Hanbury II, NSU president.
According to the Miami Herald, the center will house scientists from the university’s Rumbaugh-Goodwin Institute for Cancer Research and Emil Buehler Research Center for Engineering, Science and Mathematics, as well as United States Geological Survey. Incubator space will be leased to start-up information security companies.
The cancer institute will be relocating from an off-campus technology park in Plantation. According to Rumbaugh-Goodwin director Appu Rathinavelu, the new facility will make efficient, rewarding research that much easier.
“Everybody’s going to be working together, interacting, collaborating,” Rathinavelu told the Herald. “This building is going to be a catalyst for all that.”
The project is expected to create 300 construction-related jobs and 150 research-related jobs. Completion of the center, designed for LEED Silver certification, is slated for 2016.
SunTrust Bank and Morgan Stanley worked with NSU to finance the project. The school celebrated its 50th anniversary on Feb. 13 and has expanded to 26,000 students during its half-century, making it the ninth largest not-for-profit university in the nation.
“We feel this university can bring knowledge-based industry to attract middle- and upper-income salaries and attract businesses that want to come to [a warm climate],” Hanbury told the South Florida Business Journal. “Instead of us relying on minimum-wage service sector jobs, we can be a high-tech destination. Now everyone will see that Silicon Valley doesn’t have anything on South Florida.”
— John McCurdy