Research building under way at UC-Davis

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The University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine broke ground April 29 for a four-story, 76,000-square-foot research building that will be dedicated to protecting and improving the health of animals, people, and the environment.

The $58.5 million facility is the capstone for the first phase of the veterinary school's $354 million building program. The new building, initially to be known as Veterinary Medicine Research Facility 3B, is being constructed in the campus's health sciences district, northeast of the William R. Pritchard Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital.

UC-Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Kateh noted in a press release that the new facility will end a 40-year separation that required travel between the core campus and the school's teaching hospital and nearby laboratories.

The new building will bring together 50 faculty members in more than two dozen disciplines and nearly 40 student-faculty research teams, as well as laboratory and support staff. It will provide laboratories where researchers will explore a variety of animal health-related issues such as environmental pollution, food safety, public health, and infectious diseases. It also will house Veterinary Medicine Extension specialists, food safety monitoring and diagnostic systems, and biosecurity programs.

State and campus sources are providing $50.8 million to construct the building. Private donors are contributing an additional $12 million—$7.7 million for construction costs and $4.3 million for equipment and furnishings. The building is scheduled for completion in December 2012.

This is the eighth and final building to be constructed as part of phase one of the veterinary school's $354 million building and facilities program, launched in May 2000. Seven of those buildings are at UC-Davis, and one is at the school's Veterinary Medicine Teaching and Research Center in Tulare. The school's future building efforts will focus on updating and expanding facilities for the veterinary teaching hospital and constructing an additional building near the teaching hospital to further consolidate research programs.