Life Science

Campus Expansion Topped Off

Novartis Topping Out - Mayor & Team (1)

Novartis project team with Mayor Henrietta Davis and other dignitaries at topping off ceremony.

Cambridge, MA –  Skanska USA and Novartis recently  topped out the 550,000sf Novartis  campus expansion project in Cambridge.

To commemorate the topping out, Skanska’s project team, Local 7 Iron Workers, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research executives, and local leaders, including Mayor of Cambridge Henrietta Davis and Cambridge Fire Department Captain Thomas Cahill, gathered at the construction site to lift and place the project’s ceremonial topping out beam, marking the structural completion of the campus’s two new biomedical buildings.

Skanska is currently targeting LEED® Gold certification for both biomedical buildings, which will be comprised of mixed-use laboratory, office and retail space. The buildings also include collaborative work areas, administrative space, an auditorium and dining facilities to house more than 1,000 Novartis employees. The buildings share  a common underground structure  that features more than 450 parking spaces, a loading dock, building support spaces and a central utilities’ tri-generation plant.

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Cambridge City Councillor Minka van Beuzekom, Cambridge City Council Craig Kelley, President of the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research Mark Fishman, and Co-COO of Skanska USA Building’s New England, Delaware and Pennsylvania regions Paul Hewins were in attendance.

To date more than 45,268 tons (90,536,000 pounds) of waste and debris have been removed, as well as 201,500 cubic yards of soil from the site. 99.7% of debris from the project has been recycled.

So far, 23% of project is complete, and construction is on track to finish in 2015 as scheduled.  The project team, which includes 1,500 trades people, has dedicated 632,784 work hours to the building’s construction. During this time the project has team installed more than 6,000,000 pounds of steel as a temporary support of excavation, excavated and hauled 201,500 cubic yards of soil, placed more than 45,000 cubic yards of concrete, installed more than 7,000,000 pounds of reinforcing steel and installed 36.5 miles of post tension cables in order to erect the campus’s structural steel.

“This construction project will provide Novartis with additional state-of-the-art biomedical space to continue making  the scientific discoveries we all depend on to keep our families healthy,” said Paul Hewins of Skanska USA Building’s New England, Delaware and Pennsylvania regions.