Contracts
Missouri University Picks PARIC for $53M 'Protoplex' Lab Project
The Missouri Protoplex would include facilities for creating and testing alloy steel.
Rendering courtesy of PARIC Corp.
St. Louis-based contractor PARIC Corp. is the construction manager on Missouri University of Science and Technology’s 116,000-sq-ft laboratory building—the anchor for Missouri S&T's planned manufacturing technology and innovation campus in Rolla, some 100 miles southwest of St. Louis. The cost is $53.4 million, according to a spokesperson for PARIC.
The design team for the building, named the “Missouri Protoplex,” includes St. Louis-based Mackey Mitchell Architects, Chicago-based Perkins & Will and St. Louis-based McClure Engineering.
Plans call for lab and shop spaces with double-height “high-bay” labs for research and production, as well as offices and meeting rooms.
The building's design is organized around four programs, including one focused on creating and testing alloy steel for structural applications. Mo Dehghani, the chancellor, said in a statement that the facility would help build partnerships with industry.
“The Missouri Protoplex will provide the state-of-the-art facilities, expertise and technical knowledge, or ‘tech-know,’ to prepare our state’s workforce for the future,” Dehghani said.
PARIC is also working on Missouri S&T’s new general services building, which is the first facility to be built for the planned campus located across Interstate 44 from the main campus. The company expects to complete that $10.4-million project in June. The Protoplex would be built on the site of the previous general services building.
The university also built a pedestrian bridge over I-44 to improve students’ access to the new campus, and is planning to build various research and development facilities around the new campus—as many as 11 additional buildings, according to the university’s master plan.
