Drive on County Road 98 between "Cactus Corner" and Hutchinson Drive recently, and you will have seen some heavy earthmoving equipment at work. The yellow trucks have been excavating a 10-acre detention pond, one of a number of construction and renovation projects under way at the California National Primate Research Center.
According to center director Dallas Hyde, projects now under way or due to start this year include: construction of a detention pond, designed to cope with a 100-year flood and create wildlife habitat; construction of a second, smaller retention pond; creation of new field corrals and indoor housing for monkeys; addition of new laboratory and office space for researchers; and renovation of existing space.
The center is also applying to the National Institutes of Health for funds to build an 11,000-square-foot building to provide new laboratories, research support space and offices. Some laboratories will eventually be upgraded to biosafety level 3 labs, which are currently in short supply on campus. The new space will enable the center to more efficiently use existing laboratories at the site and relocate researchers with similar interests in one building, Hyde said.
Estimated cost of the building is approximately $5 million, with $4 million being met by the NIH grant and $1 million from campus resources. The results of the application are expected at the end of September 2004.
The other improvements, totaling about $8 million, are funded mostly from NIH renovation grants with matching funds from center reserves and the campus, Hyde said.
Hyde said that the construction projects are needed because of growing research programs in areas such as HIV/AIDS; vaccines for childhood diseases including influenza and measles; cell and gene-based therapies; asthma; and links between childhood infections, environmental pollution and asthma or autism.
"We currently have a big breeding facility but relatively little space for research," he said.
The improvement projects were included in two environmental impact reports approved in November 2001 and April 2003.