Bar Harbor approves Jackson Lab’s $33M expansion for rare disease research
Rendering / Courtesy Woodard & Curran, Jackson Laboratory
The lab’s Rare Disease Translational Center has outgrown its “limited and dispersed footprint” within an existing facility.
The Bar Harbor Planning Board has approved a plan by the Jackson Laboratory to build a 20,000-square-foot expansion to its Rare Disease Translational Center.
The nonprofit biomedical research institution, headquartered at 600 Main St., is planning the two-story addition after outgrowing its “limited and dispersed footprint” within an existing facility, according to the application submitted by Maine engineering firm Woodard & Curran.
The total estimated cost for the expansion is $32.75 million, with construction alone accounting for $24.5 million.
The expansion is designed to accommodate 135 JAX employees, a lab spokesperson told the board. Forty of them would be relocated from elsewhere on the campus and 95 would be new hires.
The project's approval was based on certain conditions still to be met: the submission of public works, water and sewer capacity statements; fire marshal approval and an amended site location of development permit from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
A local resident told the board she was concerned about the prospect of new hires, given the town’s acute housing shortage.
“Where are these people going to live?” she asked.
The board said the question was relevant but didn’t fall under the application’s purview.
The addition will allow for the consolidation and expansion of the lab’s Rare Disease Translational Center and provide dedicated laboratory and office space, according to the application.
The expansion is planned to connect to an existing building, designated Building 53 or the “Core Research Complex." It's a single large, interconnected building that houses the lab’s research facilities. The overall lot size is 35.6 acres.
Collaborating against disease
JAX established the rare disease center in 2022, with a mission to develop partnerships, innovation, precision engineering and pre-clinical pipelines to bring targeted therapies from lab to clinic swiftly and effectively.
In the two years since then, the center has supported over 40 collaborations on more than 80 projects.
Earlier this year, Congress approved $8 million, as part of the FY24 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Bill, to go toward construction of the facility, which will be dedicated to research of rare diseases and the development of new therapies to treat them.
The Orphan Drug Act of 1983 defines a rare disease as one that affects fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S., according to the lab. Yet all the various rare diseases have a significant combined impact, affecting 1 in 10 Americans and more than 350 million people worldwide.
For example, in collaboration with Ohio’s Nationwide Children’s Hospital, the lab is testing a gene therapy for PGAP3-congenital disorder of glycosylation, a rare disease that affects just 65 people worldwide, the majority of them children. Patients typically present with developmental delays, intellectual disabilities, weak muscle tone, seizures and spasms.
It’s anticipated the project will receive grants from the Health Resources and Services Administration and from the National Institutes of Health. Both are agencies of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, according to the lab’s CFO, Douglas Abbott, in a letter to the board documenting the lab’s capacity to fund the project.
JAX has 1,694 workers at its Bar Harbor campus. That includes 1,463 employees and over 200 non-employees including students, visiting scientists, contractors and others. In 2023, JAX’s Maine-based workforce commuted, worked fully remotely, or in hybrid roles, from over 140 towns and 15 of the state’s 16 counties.
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments