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Construction is set to begin this summer on the newest addition to the BWH campus – the Brigham Building for the Future (BBF). When it opens in 2016, the building will encompass lab space and ambulatory care practices, bringing clinicians and researchers together to foster translational medicine.
The building will be constructed behind the Shapiro Cardiovascular Center in between Fenwood Road and Vining Street, on the current Massachusetts Mental Health Center parking lot. “In a month, we will begin preliminary construction activities, including removing the parking lot and the fence around it,” said Joe O’Farrell, project manager for BWH Real Estate and Facilities. “After a formal groundbreaking ceremony June 19, construction will ramp up this summer with excavation.”
After removing over 200,000 tons of soil from the site, construction crews will begin steel erection of the building’s frame in spring 2014. Then, crews will install the bridge over Fenwood Road that will connect the building to the second floor of the Shapiro Center, as well as an underground connection on L2. Construction of the building’s interior will begin in early 2015.
About 75 percent of the building will be devoted to research, enabling BWH to consolidate many of the leases it currently holds throughout the city for lab space. The first and second floors will also house some ambulatory clinics dedicated to orthopedics, arthritis, and rheumatology, as well as the neurosciences.
A cafeteria will be located on the first floor, and a conference area will reside on the third floor. Below ground, the building will have an electric cogeneration plant, enabling BWH to make enough electricity to power about 80 percent of the BBF and Shapiro Center’s electrical needs and obtain LEED gold certification as a “green” building.
“This provides redundancy in electricity supply in case of a major power outage,” O’Farrell said. “It’s also more environmentally-friendly and cost-effective to make and use our own electricity.”
The building will include an underground 400-car garage, with about 150 spots for patients, 250 for employees and 50 for Department of Mental Health employees, as the building will replace the department’s current parking lot.
To top it all off, the building features a rooftop garden for employees to enjoy. Employees who have questions are encouraged to attend an informational sessions on April 26, at noon, in the Bornstein Amphitheater.