Courtesy: Bates College, rendering by Payette
Shown here shaded, the new science building will anchor the south side of campus.
May 18, 2018
Bates College to start new science and research building in 2019
Courtesy: Bates College, rendering by Payette
A rendering showing the new 65,000-square-foot science building at Bates College that is a centerpiece of $300 million Bates Campaign. The three-story building is expected to open in fall 2021.
By Staff
Bates College in Lewiston announced May 17 it will break ground in 2019 on a new science building that is intended to expand “science education at the college, embrace advanced technologies and accelerate faculty collaborations across various fields that epitomize 21st-century science research.”
The new 65,000-square-foot three-story science building will gather in one location faculty and programs in biology, chemistry, and neuroscience that share research interests and laboratory needs.
“This building will be transformative for Bates,” President Clayton Spencer said in a news release, noting that the building will offer versatile teaching and research spaces, advanced instrumentation rooms and areas designed to promote study and interaction. “Bates scientists are already doing first-rate work, pushing out the boundaries of knowledge across multiple fields and preparing the next generation of scientific innovators and leaders. The new building, together with renovations of existing science facilities that will follow, will give Bates’ students and faculty a physical platform commensurate with their talent and ambition.”
The building’s program and design have been developed by the faculty and staff STEM Facilities Planning Committee working in partnership with Payette, a nationally acclaimed architecture firm. Specializing in buildings for health care, health sciences and academic sciences, Payette has designed recent buildings at Princeton and Duke universities and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The construction manager will be Consigli Construction Co., whose Bates projects include the dining Commons (2008) and two student residences on Campus Avenue, Chu Hall and Kalperis Hall (2016).
Centerpiece of The Bates Campaign
Scheduled for opening in 2021, the science building is a centerpiece of The Bates Campaign, a $300 million fundraising campaign publicly announced in May 2017 whose goals include both this new facility and the modernization of existing STEM structures to optimize teaching and research.
At the time of last May’s announcement, Bates already had raised $168.5 million, or more than half the $300 million goal, in the two-year quiet phase of seeking pledges.
Anchoring these efforts is a $50 million gift from the family foundation of Alison Grott Bonney and Michael Bonney, who is chair of the Bates Board of Trustees and CEO and chair of Kaleido Biosciences. Both are members of the college’s Class of 1980.
Announced publicly one year ago, The Bates Campaign is the most ambitious fundraising effort in the college’s history and now totals $186 million in gifts and pledges toward the $300 million goal.
The science building project is the first step in a comprehensive reconfiguration of Bates science facilities that will include Carnegie Science Hall and Dana Chemistry Hall. Overall, the work on Bates STEM facilities will touch nearly 174,000 square feet altogether, making it easily the largest academic undertaking, in terms of facilities, in Bates history.
This work will be guided by a review, conducted in 2016 under the direction of Payette, of the college’s STEM facilities. The review yielded a comprehensive plan that will guide the planning and construction of both the new science building as well as modernization of other STEM facilities at Bates.
As existing programs move to the new building, spaces in Carnegie Science and Dana Chemistry will be repurposed and improved to create a stronger and more intentional alignment of STEM facilities at the college.
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