Construction begins on research facility
The new facilty, shown at lower right, will mirror the adjacent Donald E. Baxter, M.D., Biomedical Research Building.
University officials inaugurated the construction Aug. 1 of a $41 million research facility that UofL president John W. Shumaker said will help establish the school as an "internationally renowned address for first-class medical care and research."
The 130,000-square-foot Delia B. Baxter Biomedical Research Building is being constructed on the Health Sciences Center campus next door to the Donald E. Baxter Biomedical Research Building.
The new facility, expected to be completed in the fall of 2002, will be "the next jewel in the crown of our university's prestigious and ever-expanding medical research center," Shumaker said.
Baxter II, as it's informally known, will be a virtual twin to its neighbor, which was dedicated in October 1999. Like its predecessor, it will have four floors and a basement, with 48 labs arranged into pods or wings. Each pod will contain six labs, lab support space and offices. Each floor also will feature a core laboratory with special equipment shared by other departments in the university.
A 40-seat conference room will be built as part of an underground connector between the buildings.
Dr. Joel Kaplan, dean of the medical school and vice president for health affairs, said the new facility was born of necessity.
"We need more research space," Kaplan explained. "This state, this university and this medical center set goals for themselves these last four years that have begun to bear fruit-the kind of fruit that confirms the wisdom and vision of the men and women who set those goals.
"Long before the Dr. Donald E. Baxter Research Building ever opened, nearly all of the space in it had occupants anxiously waiting for its completion. As our research efforts continue to grow, I can tell you we already have researchers lined up to be tenants of the new Delia B. Baxter Biomedical Research Building.
"I will not be surprised if, by the time this building is completed, all of its space is promised to researchers finding ways to improve the lives of the citizens of the Commonwealth."
Partners in the funding of the building include the Commonwealth of Kentucky, which appropriated $32 million for the project, and the Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Foundation, which gave $4 million.
Private donations accounted for the remaining $5 million. Delia Beardsley Baxter, Donald Baxter's wife, established the foundation that bears their names in 1959. Donald Baxter graduated from UofL's medical school in 1909.
