Less than one year after seeking proposals for land and receiving a federal grant, Rhode Island broke ground Oct. 24 on the construction of an $81.7 million state health laboratory to be built inside a new seven-story commercial building in Providence's Jewelry District.
In partnership with Ancora L&G, a private developer, the state will construct the 212,000 sq.-ft., seven-story building to house the new Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) State Health Laboratories. It also will be home to Brown University's life science labs and provide added space for bio-technology companies.
The building site currently is a vacant lot at Richmond and Clifford streets adjacent to Interstate 195 in the city's Innovation and Design District.
"Rhode Island has momentum — and this project is crucial to ensuring the momentum continues in the areas of public health and our life sciences economy," Gov. Dan McKee said in a release from his office. "We're grateful for the partners who came together to ensure Rhode Island maximizes this significant economic development opportunity while advancing the state's important public health goals."
The total cost of the building's construction, according to the release from the governor's office, carries a price tag of $165 million.
New Lab Desperately Needed
Public health officials in the state have been clamoring to replace their run-down 1970s-era health lab on Orms Street since the onset of the COVID pandemic, according to the Providence Journal, saying the building is outdated and limited their ability to respond to the coronavirus.
The current lab is the only Level 3 biosafety facility in the state equipped to handle dangerous materials, microbes and pathogens.
Former state Health Director Nicole Alexander-Scott, who first championed a new laboratory, told the Providence news source that the old building has a leaky roof and outdated heating, cooling, and electrical systems.
The new state laboratory also would be classified as Level 3 and have a larger "biocontainment facility" allowing researchers to do more testing and genomic sequencing to search for deadly pathogens, according to the Journal.
CDC Grant Boosted Rhode Island Project
In November 2021, Rhode Island announced it was sending out a request for proposals for land and development to house the state's new lab, according to Center Square. Later that month, the state received an $81.7 million Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity grant from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that would be allocated to the project.
The new state lab will encompass 80,000-sq.ft. of the new structure. It will process biological and chemical testing for infectious diseases, environmental, and forensic testing. Other space is set to be available to academic partners and industry partners in biotechnology.
"The construction of this new facility in Rhode Island is essential to our efforts to strengthen the nation's capacity to prevent and rapidly respond to any public health event," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a release from her agency. "Investments like these are critical to help equitably protect the health, safety, and security of all. We look forward to the benefits that this facility will bring to Rhode Island and surrounding areas."
Brown University has inked a letter of intent with Ancora for 20,000 sq. ft. of lab space for the next 10 years.
"We are delighted to have been selected as the developer for the RIDOH State Health Laboratories," Josh Parker, chief executive officer of Ancora, said in a statement. "The development will deliver much-needed infrastructure for Rhode Island, including state-of-the-art public health labs that will enhance the state's ability to test for and manage a broad range of infectious diseases and illnesses, together with private-sector lab space to support expansion of the area's growing bioscience ecosystem."
The facility, according to the governor's office, will follow a condominium model with the state taking ownership of the building upon the construction's finish.
The private lab space will be owned by Ancora L&G, a partnership between Legal & General Capital, a United Kingdom-based investment group, and Ancora, a North Carolina-based real estate firm.
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