Illinois The University of Chicago is planning to build the William Eckhardt Research Center, a five-story, 265,000-sq-ft building. The cast-in-place concrete structure will utilize slurry-wall construction for the basement wall and include chilled-beam technology and heat recovery systems. The building will contain offices, laboratories, conference rooms and the Institute of Molecular Engineering, with a 9,200-sq-ft clean room and an imaging suite below grade. HOK, along with James Carpenter Design Associates, is handling design; W.E. O’Neil is serving as the construction manager. The project also entails demolishing the existing Research Institutes Building, Low-Temp Building and the Astronomy and Astrophysics Center at 5630-5650 S. Ellis Ave. Demolition is expected to start this summer. The project goal is LEED Gold certification. Construction is expected to be completed in 2015. The project is valued at $215 million. W.E. O’Neil Construction Co., 2751 N. Clybourn Ave., Chicago, 60614.
Maryland The National Security Agency is designing a new supercomputing center, to be located at Fort Meade. The High-Performance Computing Center will feature 60 MW of power, depressed slab construction—with a floor load rating of 600 lb per sq in.—and a chilled-water system. The estimated construction cost is $895 million. The cost of the primary facility, including modular shell buildings, antiterrorism hardening and fire protection, will be $567 million. The total includes $118 million for mechanical systems and $225 million for electrical systems. Security features will include a vehicle cargo-inspection facility, visitor control center, and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear detection systems. The construction contract is expected to be awarded by September 2012, and construction is expected to be completed by December 2015. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 10 S. Howard St., Baltimore, 21201.