The new building will be known as Centrum, and will provide 4,000 square metre of high quality facilities including laboratory and office space, a business centre and formal and informal meeting rooms. The four-storey Centrum building will also include a restaurant and café, a breakout area and exhibition and circulation space.
The Centrum development will be located centrally on the Norwich Research Park adjacent to the existing Recreation Centre and Conference Centre on the John Innes Centre site. It will act as a hub for the local science and business community, and will also facilitate collaboration amongst the Research Park’s occupants.
Morgan Sindall was awarded the contract after a competitive tender. Work is expected to start on site in late January 2013 with the building opening planned for May 2014. The development is on track to achieve a Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) rating of Excellent.
The development forms a key part of ‘Project 26′, which refers to the £26 million ($41.2 million) funding awarded through the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) in the 2011 Government Budget. The funding has been awarded to Norwich Research Park to improve the Park’s IT infrastructure, road network and provide new flagship buildings.
The Norwich Research Park is a partnership between the University of East Anglia, the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital, and four independent research centres: the John Innes Centre, the Institute of Food Research, the Sainsbury Laboratory and the Genome Analysis Centre. The Park has one of Europe’s largest single-site concentrations of research in agri-food, health and environmental sciences.
