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Sept. 8, 2004 — The scientific community often focuses on the researchers working with atoms and molecules. But often overlooked are the outside people working to lay the groundwork for this research, those with bottom-up approaches of their own.
One team in particular has built a niche in nanotechnology. McCarthy Building Companies Inc. recently constructed Duffield Hall, a 150,000-square-foot nano facility at Cornell University. The St. Louis-based construction firm also renovated and remodeled a nano center at Rice University, and is working on a bio and nanotech facility at University of California, Berkeley.
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The Cornell contract helped the 140-year-old firm gain know-how in a nascent field about which it knew nothing. McCarthy brought its expertise of an area that’s crucial for nearly every nano lab: clean rooms.
“I just happened to notice that Cornell was planning this project and thought, ‘Maybe we can get something here,'” said Bud Guest, McCarthy’s senior vice president responsible for research and development facilities. “At the time, I didn’t even know what nano was. I don’t think anybody did. But we knew clean rooms.”
McCarthy’s previous experience building rooms with equipment that controls airborne particles, humidity and temperature helped the firm win the right to compete for the Cornell contract. But Guest said the selection process was the most stringent in his company’s history.
McCarthy went through three separate interviews over a three-month period, followed by a 24-hour final exam that began with a 5 p.m. dinner with Cornell’s selection committee.
“Toward the end of dinner, they said, ‘Here’s a list of 40 technical questions we’re going to ask you at 8 a.m. Good night, guys,'” Guest recalled. “It was virtually an all-nighter.”
McCarthy ultimately prevailed in a joint venture with Welliver McGuire Inc., a Montour Falls, N.Y.-based construction firm. The contract included construction as well as managing the installation of the tools.
Guest said McCarthy’s building experience with the likes of Motorola, Intel, Amgen Inc.and the University of California system has translated into nanotech fabs and labs. But a major difference for the latter category is the effort necessary to limit vibration. At Cornell, concrete slabs as much as 3-feet thick separate the lab floor from the rest of the building due to the extreme sensitivity of electron microscopes and other tools.
Overcoming such technical challenges is part of the mission of the Buildings for Advanced Technology (BAT) workshops organized by the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) and other federal research institutes.
As more money flows into nano building projects — especially since last year’s passage of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act — leaders say it’s important to hear the concerns of scientists, architects, engineers, builders and equipment suppliers.
“What we like, certainly, is for all the facilities to be state-of-the-art. We don’t like to have a variety of standards,” said Mike Roco, senior nanotech adviser at the National Science Foundation and NNI architect. “However, at the same time, we like to leave open competition among the companies that are building.”
There is cooperation among players as a nano building boom looms. Omaha, Neb.-based HDR Inc. is an architectural, engineering and consulting firm. Like McCarthy, HDR seeks contracts to manage major nano facility projects. HDR, which co-sponsored the second BAT workshop in January, is currently working on nano centers at University of South Florida and Purdue University.
Although HDR and McCarthy do compete for the total package — bids for designing and building a center — Guest said each firm has its own specialties on the job and will team up if an owner selects an independent designer and builder.
HDR and McCarthy have yet to collaborate on a nano project, but they have worked together on medical centers. They shared a Project of the Year Award from the Design-Build Institute of America for the University of Colorado Hospital.
With three nano projects wrapped up or underway, Guest said McCarthy is pursuing other projects in the budding field. But the firm won’t take on all comers; it recently declined one national laboratory’s invitation to compete in a process that would pick the low bidder.
“They asked us several times, ‘Why won’t you bid?'” he said.
“Two things: One, we don’t want to be a commodity. Secondly, I doubt we could be the low bidder because we know too much. … If the secret to success is to be the low bidder, I don’t think we’d be the low bidder. We don’t think the nanotech facilities lend themselves to the hard-bid process.”