ST. LOUIS — Washington University School of Medicine has opened the new Jeffrey T. Fort Neuroscience Research Building, an 11-story academic building located at 4370 Duncan Ave. in St. Louis. The project represents an investment of $616 million, according to the general contractor, locally based McCarthy Building Cos. Inc.
Considered one of the largest neuroscience research buildings in the world, the facility will help accelerate research in areas that include Alzheimer’s disease and brain tumors. The project team, including architectural firms CannonDesign and Perkins+Will, designed the facility to achieve LEED Gold certification.
Situated on the eastern edge of campus, the 609,000-square-foot building accommodates 1,000 faculty and staff, including 95 research teams. Additional space could be built out in the future to accommodate another 350 faculty and staff, including about 145 research teams.
The building includes an 1,846-space parking structure with bicycle racks and electric vehicle charging stations, as well as an elevated pedestrian connection that links the research building to an existing parking garage.
The facility is named after Jeffrey Fort, a philanthropist and longtime donor to the university. The name was revealed at a ceremony held in January.
McCarthy and the university broke ground on the research building in spring 2020. To overcome obstacles presented during the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 90 percent of the mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) systems underwent prefabrication and pre-testing in local prefab shops before installation onsite. The building’s façade was also prefabricated.
“Early collaboration played a pivotal role in the success of this project,” says Andy Poirot, vice president and project executive at McCarthy Building Cos. “We successfully realized the client’s vision, delivering a cutting-edge research facility poised to enhance lives for generations to come.”
Washington University is a private institution founded in 1853. The School of Medicine, which was founded in 1891, is one of seven schools at the university.
The School of Medicine is located on the Washington University Medical Campus, which includes Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis Children’s Hospital and the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. The campus is part of Cortex Innovation District, a public-private hub for research and entrepreneurship.
— John Nelson