From its humble beginnings as a tiny pharmaceutical college founded by 14 Boston pharmacists, the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences has grown to become the largest school of its kind in the U.S.
For more than 175 years, MCPHS operated solely in Boston, on a quaint, 2,500-student campus in the heart of the city's famed Longwood Medical and Academic Area. By the late 1990s, however, the campus was bursting at the seams as the demand for pharmacy and health sciences professionals skyrocketed.
To accommodate the rapid growth, college officials set forth an ambitious plan to build a satellite campus in Worcester for 400 students, including housing for 175 graduate students.
Worcester is home to a number of prestigious clinical organizations, including the UMass Memorial Medical Center, providing plenty of partnership opportunities for the school. The city is also in the midst of an aggressive urban revitalization effort, and MCPHS was viewed by city officials as crucial to rejuvenating the city core.
In 2000, MCPHS snatched up two adjacent historic buildings in the heart of the city and within months converted the first—an 1890s-era commercial structure—into 60,000 sf of research, instruction, and lab space. Soon after, the college began work on the crown jewel of its new satellite campus: the nine-story, 100,000-sf Living and Learning Center.
The $20 million project involved restoring and converting the 1913 Graphic Arts Building into a mixed-use facility complete with street-level retail, classrooms, labs, conference rooms, faculty offices, and five levels of apartment-style residence space.
The construction effort was split into two phases and spanned 16 months. It involved the addition of a ninth floor, restoration of the existing façade, the gut-conversion of the eight existing floors, and construction of three CMU shafts from the basement to the top floors to accommodate new fire stairs and elevators and to support the rooftop addition.
The Building Team employed a fast-track schedule that left little room for error. Case in point: The critical-path schedule for the rooftop addition left less than two months for the installation and testing of new electrical and mechanical rooms on the top floor.
“This project is a great example of superior logistics in construction,” said Reconstruction Awards judge Kenneth R. Osmun, P.E., DBIA, president of Wight Construction, Darien, Ill.
Related Stories
| Aug 13, 2014
Campus UX: Why universities should be creating 'branded environments' on campus
When most colleges and universities consider their brands, they rarely venture beyond the design and implementation of a logo, writes Gensler Design Director Brian Brindisi.
| Aug 12, 2014
First look: Calatrava's futuristic Main Building opens at Florida Polytechnic University
The $60 million structure is wrapped in a bright-white, aluminum pergola for dramatic effect and solar shading.
| Jul 30, 2014
Higher ed officials grapple with knotty problems, but construction moves ahead [2014 Giants 300 Report]
University stakeholders face complicated cap-ex stressors, from chronic to impending. Creative approaches to financing, design, and delivery are top-of-mind, according to BD+C's 2014 Giants 300 Report.
| Jul 28, 2014
Reconstruction market benefits from improving economy, new technology [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Following years of fairly lackluster demand for commercial property remodeling, reconstruction revenue is improving, according to the 2014 Giants 300 report.
| Jul 28, 2014
Reconstruction Sector Construction Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Structure Tone, Turner, and Gilbane top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest reconstruction contractor and construction management firms in the U.S.
| Jul 28, 2014
Reconstruction Sector Engineering Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Jacobs, URS, and Wiss, Janney, Elstner top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest reconstruction engineering and engineering/architecture firms in the U.S.
| Jul 28, 2014
Reconstruction Sector Architecture Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Stantec, HDR, and HOK top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest reconstruction architecture and architecture/engineering firms in the U.S.
| Jul 23, 2014
Architecture Billings Index up nearly a point in June
AIA reported the June ABI score was 53.5, up from a mark of 52.6 in May.
| Jul 21, 2014
Economists ponder uneven recovery, weigh benefits of big infrastructure [2014 Giants 300 Report]
According to expert forecasters, multifamily projects, the Panama Canal expansion, and the petroleum industry’s “shale gale” could be saving graces for commercial AEC firms seeking growth opportunities in an economy that’s provided its share of recent disappointments.
| Jul 18, 2014
Contractors warm up to new technologies, invent new management schemes [2014 Giants 300 Report]
“UAV.” “LATISTA.” “CMST.” If BD+C Giants 300 contractors have anything to say about it, these new terms may someday be as well known as “BIM” or “LEED.” Here’s a sampling of what Giant GCs and CMs are doing by way of technological and managerial innovation.
