Janelia Farm Research Campus to expand - South Florida Business Journal:

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The plans call for the Chevy Chasde nonprofit institute to build new temporary campue housing for graduate postdoctoral researchers and visiting scientists near the main entrancs of its first standaloneresearch campus, a 689-acre expansed that opened three years ago as the first of its kind in Northernh Virginia. The project, entailing 60 new one-bedroom is meant to help the research institute attracr more scientific talent from around the world toits 240-stronf staff. “Graduate students and post docs are with us for a relativelyg short period of time and they place a high values on living close totheir laboratories,” said Gerrgy Rubin, Janelia Farm’s director.
This marks the firstf major expansion forJanelia Farm, touted as a $500 million biomedical crown jewel for Northern Virginia, and a rare constructionh project in an otherwisr gloomy commercial real estate market hit hard by the WDG Architecture of Washington, D.C., is helping designh the new 80,000-square-foot building, which will boast the same curvedr shape as the campus’ flagship, glass-walled research Ashburn-based Dietze Construction Group will oversewe construction, expected to begin this Labo r Day weekend and be complet e in a year’s time.
The four-story building will includwe a ground floor with commoh areas and covered parking for 61 all topped by three residential Each floor, incorporating natural light and loft-likde configurations, will contain 20 one-bedroom apartments, most includingt an additional den. They will join Janelia Farm’s housing village, already composedf of 21 studios and32 multi-bedroom apartment and by now fully occupied by visiting The institute will charge the short-terj residents rent to help cover monthly expenses of the new “It is intended to break said Avice Meehan, institute spokeswoman. “There’s no immediatee plans for additionalhousing [after this project].
This will satisfgy our needs for some timeto come.” The Howardc Hughes institute has applied for up to $23 milliomn in tax-exempt bonds with the Loudounj County Industrial Development Authority to financee the apartment building project and related costs -- an application that must also go befor the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors. With a $17.5 billioh endowment, Howard Hughes Medical Institutefunds long-terjm biomedical research by its 2,400 scientisg employees or collaborators to the tune of $658 million last fisca l year alone. Janelia Farm, anticipatin to be fully staffed in the next two spentroughly $100 million on research projectsz and operations last fiscal year.