The University of North Florida will dedicate its Biological Sciences Building at 10:30 a.m. today.
Construction of the four-story facility began in July 2010. The $39.4 million project was funded by Public Education Capital Outlay Funds specifically for construction.
The 116,500-square-foot Biological Sciences Building houses the Department of Biology, comprising 17 teaching labs and 28 faculty research labs for aquatics, virology, ecology, genetics, physiology, molecular biology and molecular cell biology as well as the Coastal Biology Flagship Program.
It also will house the six specialized educational programs within the Department of Biology, including the Coastal Biology Flagship Program, which was established in October
2006.
Programs of study leading to medical and dental school, as well as other health professions, also are contained in the Department of Biology, plus the new Medical Lab Sciences program. Many undergraduates work in research labs before completion of their undergraduate degree.
According to UNF, the building has four lecture halls, one with 192 seats, a multipurpose classroom with 48 seats; and two multipurpose 48-seat classrooms with a partition enabling them to be combined.
The facility includes an interior courtyard with a green wall; Tree of Life conference room; a greenhouse; aquatic teaching labs, a necropsy lab; saltwater storage; and prep rooms.
The interior courtyard, named Darwin’s garden, is planted in native Florida species and will be used as a living botany class.
UNF said 6,000 gallons of saltwater, provided by and transported from Marineland, is stored and available for aquatic research and teaching labs as well as the greenhouse, which is on the roof of the
building.
The building was designed by the joint venture of Perkins & Will and the firm of Harvard Jolly. Ajax Building Corp. is the construction management
firm.
When certified later this year, the building will be the seventh “green” building on campus since 2005, according to the university.