U Delaware to Become Home of Discovery Hub

By Keith Loria

The Discovery Hub

IMC Construction broke ground on the Discovery Hub, a new, $150 million research facility for Chemours. The center is being built on the University of Delaware’s Science Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Campus in Newark, Del.

When completed, the facility will total 312,000 square feet on a 15-acre site in the southeast corner of the STAR campus, with new labs and offices for nearly 330 scientists, engineers and researchers who will be relocated from Chemours’ New Castle County facilities.

“This is a state-of-the-art, unique facility that is going to create a huge employment hub, it’s going to be innovative for creating new projects, and it’s going to be teamed up with the University of Delaware for employment,” Rob Cottone, IMC Construction’s president & CEO, told Commercial Property Executive. “It will cause a boom for the construction industry and vendors who will be involved in bringing this facility to life.”

State-of-the-Art Project

The Discovery Hub will consist of more than 100 labs, 50 specialty rooms, cafes, conference rooms and 20 “huddle” rooms that will be utilized for small group meetings. According to Cottone, the facility will act as a pipeline between one of the best bio-engineering schools in the nation and a chemical industry leader, attracting some of the best minds in the field.

The four-story building is expected to be finished by early 2020.

“The end-product of the building, being an innovation hub, lends great to IMC’s philosophy about ‘care for the environment, care for the future,’ because some of the product they are putting out of this is environmentally sensitive,” Jerry Brandmueller, project manager for the project, told CPE. “A refrigerant that will go into air conditioning units that is not ozone depleting.”

The project team also consists of architects L2 Partridge, site engineers Tetra Tech, mechanical/electrical engineers RDK and structural engineers O’Donnell & Naccarato.  

“There’s obviously hundreds upon hundreds of pieces of equipment, some of which has been patented and customized and are very unique for the work and products that Chemours’ produces,” Cottone said. “When you think of the duct work, the mechanical work and utilities that are needed to service all the equipment and labs that exist in the building, there will be thousands of miles of conduits for a variety of services. The coordination of the design and construction gets quite extensive when you have that kind of services.”

IMC Construction is utilizing its fully integrated computer modeling department that models equipment in a 4-D manner, so all designers and trades personnel can virtually in a meeting room build and evaluate the most efficient cost-effective manner of designing and installing different pieces of equipment and mechanical work.

Award Winning Construction Company

IMC Construction has also completed similar projects for the University of Pennsylvania, Endo Pharmaceuticals, Siemens Medical, AmerisourceBergen and other leaders in scientific inquiry.

In May, IMC Construction appointed veteran healthcare construction professional Arthur Brinkworth to the role of project director. IMC’s health care portfolio includes completed medical projects for the University of Pennsylvania Health System, Penn Medicine, Main Line Health, Fox Chase Crozier-Keystone Cancer Partnership, Community Volunteers in Medicine and Phoenixville Hospital.

A new survey by the Associated General Contractors of America and Sage Construction and Real Estate, revealed that the construction industry has high expectations for a successful year.

Photo courtesy of IMC Construction