Mortenson's University of Washington R&T Building Receives National DBIA Honors

Seattle, WA - Mortenson's Seattle office recently announced that the University of Washington Research & Technology Building was awarded top honors at the 2006 National DBIA awards ceremony. One of 89 projects submitted for consideration, the building won the National Design-Build Award for Public Buildings Over $15 Million.

The UW Research & Technology Building is being delivered under a Design-Build-Operate-Maintain (DBOM) agreement with a 30-year term. The shell and core design and construction was delivered under a fixed price agreement with Mortenson, as will be the 30-year operations and maintenance contract (with variable indexes for energy costs and other uncontrollable risks). Tenant improvement costs are negotiated as a design/build guaranteed maximum price as spaces are leased. That commitment will also continue for 30 years as the building tenants churn.

The six-story, 155,000 SF building is primarily a laboratory/office facility with 67 stalls of underground structured parking. The core and shell project was completed in March 2006. Tenant improvements will be phased over the next one to three years as space is leased. The facility can accommodate tenants of practically any size (from 500 to 50,000 SF) and nearly any research need (from dry labs to wet labs, from vivarium to vibration-sensitive research). All building systems are designed to allow tenants the flexibility of choosing research spaces that fit their needs.

A first for Mortenson as well as for the University of Washington, the DBOM approach offered an exciting opportunity to demonstrate the enormous value of truly integrated delivery.

The project also recently won another award: the Distinguished Project Award from the Northwest Construction Consumers Council, an organization focused on owners’ needs in the design and construction of capital facilities. The NWCCC provides a regional forum to explore best practices in cost-effective design and construction.