THE BIG PIVOT TO SCIENCE

The rush to convert existing buildings into facilities for research and development

By David Bendet, AIA, LEED AP BD+C

The life sciences industry has become the great hope in real estate as we face the most significant public health crisis in a century. While other industries have slowed and suffered as a result of sheltering in place and working from home, science facilities have remained operational and have even thrived in prime markets as the industry continues to search for medical breakthroughs.

The downturn in other industries has left buildings vacant. The life science market, on the other hand, continues to experience some of the lowest vacancy and highest employment rates. For life science organizations in the prime US markets there simply remains a shortage of available research-capable space.

Enter the Big Pivot to Science.

Like never before, the availability of non-science space combined with the unprecedented demand for science, is driving building owners and developers alike to consider converting existing non-lab space into facilities that can support research and development activities.

Do Not Underestimate the Challenge:

While most of the people-oriented office and collaboration spaces are similar, science programs vary widely, the room environments must respond directly to these programs, and the building systems must be designed to support the resulting performance requirements. In addition to supporting the extensive and highly sensitive analytical processes used in science, these building systems must also be designed to protect the health and safety of the occupants from the chemical and biological materials used. This makes the process to adaptively-reuse these non-science facilities into science complex, potentially costly, and requires experienced design, engineering, and construction professionals to guide the conversion.

How is a Science Building Different?

There is no one-size-fits all set of instructions to make the conversion. When evaluating the strategy to convert a building to science, it is critical to recognize that all existing buildings are unique and each of the many types of science facilities and user organizations are also unique. There are many types of science programs, including basic biology and chemistry, bioinformatics, clinical research, food science, physical science, engineering, cGMP process manufacturing and more, each of which requires a specific response to align existing facilities with the required science program...

A detailed Facilities Assessment of the existing building, combined with a comprehensive Basis of Design for the programmatic space, indoor environmental conditions, and equipment needs will establish a Gap Analysis along with a Set of Requirements to be achieved in order for the facility to support the new science use.

Longer Schedules:

Starting with an existing structure is much faster than starting with new construction as the primary building elements are already in place. However, science facilities take longer to design and construct than typical office workspace due to the complexity of the new HVAC ventilation equipment and distribution systems, normal and standby electrical equipment and distribution, and process utilities systems required. Scientific equipment needs to be carefully coordinated with the space and utilities, and the building infrastructure systems need to be designed to support this equipment. In addition, these specialized building systems and scientific equipment often have long-lead procurement durations which may extend the schedule.

Location and Zoning:

Zoning regulations stipulate the allowable use of property within neighborhoods. Changing the building use may require a change of use application with the City Planning Department. The most common science conversion is from low-rise B-Occupancy office to B-Occupancy science. This is relatively straight-forward with limited impact to the existing building structure. High-rise offices, or buildings of a different type of use and occupancy classification such as warehouse or retail, require more significant modifications which vary depending on the location and use of the existing building.

Any City Planning Department review can add months to the design approvals process.

In additional to a change of use, modifications to the exterior of the building can also trigger a Planning review. Science buildings often require more and larger air handling and exhaust fan ventilation equipment on the roof which would become visible and may not be allowable in certain property zones without adequate roof screening. Existing buildings also may not have an enclosed yard for bulk utilities or a standby power generator which may be required for the new use. Adding tall ventilation equipment on the roof, or large utilities equipment on the site, could potentially trigger City Planning reviews as well as the need to add a roof and service yard screen to conceal this new equipment.

Site and Service:

Most science facilities require additional loading dock space to receive supplies and to store hazardous materials waiting to be used or waiting for safe and proper disposal after use. This space is often separate from shipping and receiving of normal office supplies and may require the construction of a specially designed hazardous materials storage area to safely contain these materials and protect building occupants.

Some science facilities and most pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities require utility yard space for bulk process utilities as well as exterior space for a standby power generator. As an example, some biological research facilities store frozen cells in liquid nitrogen containers. When there are many containers it is often most efficient to pipe this liquid nitrogen from a bulk tank in the utility yard and these bulk tanks can be very large.

In many existing buildings the passenger elevators are also used for deliveries. In science buildings, however, it is good practice to have a separate service elevator for delivery and removal of hazardous materials, process utilities and gases used in science, and transport to and from a vivarium if included.

Architecture and Code Compliance:

Science facilities must prioritize the health and safety of the building occupants, as well as the health and safety of the nearby community, this includes confirmation that the existing facility has adequate means to exit and fire protection measures in place based on the new use.

Any change of occupancy or use requires the need to confirm that the egress system meets the requirements of Chapter 10 in the Building Code. Generally, higher occupant densities and higher hazard levels may require more exits and these exits may need to be wider. This is particularly true if converting to an L or H-Occupancy science environment. Door widths should be confirmed although are relatively simple to widen. Stairway widths, however, are much more difficult to alter, and could drive the need for additional stairways. Also, the egress systems may require modification when considering converting an existing single-tenant building to a multi-tenant building.

A unique aspect of science buildings is that they often need to contain and manage chemical and biological hazardous materials.  Most low-rise three and four-story office and research facilities are designated as B-Occupancy per the Building Code, which are able to support an adequate amount of these materials on each floor in a safe manner and at quantities able to support the science without much change to the existing infrastructure.

As buildings get taller, however, the allowable limit of these materials is significantly decreased due to additional challenge of protecting occupant safety in responding to an event on higher floors. These reduced hazardous materials quantities on the higher floors often impacts the ability to perform certain types of science, chemistry in particular. In order to allow more hazardous materials on higher floors, it may be required to change the B-Occupancy classification to an L-Occupancy (California) and/or adapt to the requirements of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) for high-rise labs. This new classification may have significant schedule and cost implications due to the need to upgrade the fire protection ratings, provide increased standby power, make modifications to the lab exhaust systems, and a handful of other requirements.

Fire protection systems requiring verification include fire ratings of the existing floor and roof assemblies, fire rating of columns and beams, shafts, and fire-rated separations between internal uses. The fire sprinkler systems must be evaluated for sufficient capacity based on the use hazard, and occasionally additional pressure may be required with a new fire water pump.

Structural Systems:

A little vibration is a big deal. As sensitive analytical and imaging equipment is working at increasingly smaller cellular and even molecular levels, they require very controlled and still environmental conditions. Small amounts of floor vibration, simply from people walking by, can cause significant disruption of the research. The measurement for structural vibration is micro-inches per second (mips). A smaller number means less vibration. Common office buildings may be designed for 8,000 - 16,000 mips, while typical science buildings are designed for 4,000 mips or lower, and certain types of devices, such as an electron microscope demand significantly less vibration in the range of only 250 mips. While existing concrete slabs on grade typically meet the vibration performance criteria for science, existing upper floors may require structural strengthening or even the addition of a tuned mass damper to achieve acceptable vibration performance.

Floor-to-Floor Height, or the vertical dimension between floors, is a common and significant difference between office and science buildings. Science buildings need to exhaust a lot more air to provide safe environments. More air requires larger and more extensive ductwork in the plenum space between the ceiling and the structure above. Unfortunately, most office buildings have only 12’ floor-to-floor heights with limited plenum space. Good practice for science buildings is between 14’ and 16’ floor-to-floor. Converting an existing building with low floor-to-floor heights to science use could result in labs with uncomfortably low ceiling heights without the careful coordination of the existing and new systems by skilled architectural and mechanical engineering design professionals to maximize ceiling heights and natural daylighting into the labs.

Common building structural systems are designed to support normal office floor and roof loads. While office buildings may use code minimum criteria of 50psf and 80psf for upper floors, with additional capacity for partitions, good practice for science buildings is 100psf plus allowance for additional live loads of scientific equipment. Roof structures on existing buildings are also not typically capable of supporting the added weight of the additional and larger rooftop HVAC and exhaust ventilation equipment required. Often this requires reinforcement of the existing roof structure or building equipment platforms to carry the weight to the building columns.

The spacing of structural columns affects planning strategies for research labs. Good lab planning begins with “the module” - a standardized dimension based on an ideal 6’ space between lab benches and an assumed double-sided lab bench depth of 5’. The 6’ wide space between lab benches is critical to provide a safe working environment for researchers and also accommodates the extra depth often required for scientific equipment on the bench. Three of these 11’ modules generate an idealized structural grid spacing of 33’. Most office buildings are designed on a 10’ module with 30’ structural grid spacing which tends to compress the space between lab benches or creates a lab module spacing that is misaligned with the building structure. This requires additional creativity from design professionals to avoid awkward conditions such as columns in the middle of aisles and partitions hitting the middle of windows.

Ventilation Systems:

One of the most unique requirements of science facilities is the need to manage much more air movement, resulting in the need to accommodate more space for the larger and more extensive ductwork as well as rooftop ventilation equipment. Existing facilities recirculate most of the air within spaces or may even have natural ventilation with operable windows. Recirculating air allows much smaller HVAC equipment because the air being heated or cooled has already been conditioned.

The amount and type of ventilation varies significantly based on the type of science and risk involved.

Most typical biology and chemistry labs require all air within the space to be 100% exhausted to the exterior, not recirculated. This means that all air coming into the labs must be conditioned, placing a much higher demand on heating and cooling infrastructure, and therefore larger equipment and distribution systems. Most of these facilities also have chemical fume hoods and other contained ventilation cabinets within the labs where researchers perform more hazardous work. These interior contained ventilation devices may require a separate exhaust system as well as tall exhaust fans with stacks on the roof.

When dealing with infectious agents in research, there is a higher standard to not only protect the occupants within the facility, but also to ensure that these infectious agents are contained within very controlled rooms and not released into the air or discharged through drains. The CDCs publication “Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories” defines the hazard level of the infectious agents by BioSafety Level criteria 1 through 4, with BSL-4 being the most hazardous. Agents classified as BSL-1 do not present any real risk to humans, while BSL-4 labs may use dangerous/exotic agents which pose high individual risk of aerosol-transmitted infections that are frequently fatal and for which there are no vaccines or treatments. Most typical research environments are classified as BSL-2. When dealing with BSL-3 or above, it is critical that experienced design, engineering, and construction professionals are engaged to define the unique requirements for each project.

In facilities designed for drug development it is the product that must be protected from contamination by external sources. The FDA ensures product safety and quality through compliance with the Current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) regulations which contain minimum requirements for the operations and facilities design. The specific requirements for cGMP spaces includes clean room environments to ISO standards. Clean rooms need a lot of air and usually at a controlled temperature and humidity and the cleaner the cleanroom needs to be, the more air it will need to use.

How often the room air is completely replaced with fresh air is known as the air change rate, measured by Air Changes per Hour (ACH). Generally, more hazardous science uses will require more air changes to provide a safe working environment. More air changes requires larger equipment, larger and more extensive ductwork, and uses more energy. There is a balance between providing adequate safety without using too much energy. Air change rates generally ranges from 4 ACH for when the lab is not occupied, to 6 ACH when the lab is occupied, and over 12 ACH in labs with more hazardous use. While there are many agencies providing guidance on appropriate ventilation rates including ANSI, ASHRAE, OSHA, and NFPA, it is often the Environmental Health and Safety group within each organization that will help to define the level of risk and the acceptable ventilation rate.

Electrical Systems:

Science facilities require more power than most existing buildings have available and upgrades to the main electrical power service likely requires involvement of the City’s utility provider which can significantly increase the cost of projects and extend design and construction schedules. The added cost and time results from a combination of the additional electrical equipment required and the need to coordinate, engineer, and complete the installation of the main power service with the City’s provider.

The requirement for additional power comes from the need to serve a large amount of scientific equipment, cold storage facilities, as well as the larger power-consuming HVAC equipment. The amount of normal power available and required by certain uses is best described by the power density measurement of watts per square ft (w/sf). While many existing facilities and non-science environments may be designed to support no more than 10 or 15 w/sf, science facilities can consume 25 w/sf or more, and the power demand varies significantly based on the type of science. A professional engineer must be engaged to determine the appropriate power density based on the science program required.

A standby backup power generator is typically required in science buildings to maintain operation of select equipment for safety and/or protect the research or product. It is good practice to have ventilation cabinets continue operation in a power failure to prevent backdraft of hazardous materials in a power failure. In some cases, this is to protect active research that could be lost in a power failure. In most cases, standby power is required to support equipment where valuable product is stored, such as refrigerators, freezer farms, and walk-in cold rooms. A new generator, if required, is often located near the main utility service entrance which may consume existing site landscaping or parking spaces, may require screening so it is not visible, will require coordination for fueling, and often requires special permits from the City’s air quality agency.

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and the Shift to All-Electric Buildings. Many jurisdictions are adopting Reach Codes which expand state code requirements to enhance initiatives related to climate change, clean air, and renewable energy. These Reach Codes often require the reduction or elimination of natural gas in buildings in favor of all-electric power which can be generated by renewable sources. Many of these jurisdictions are also requiring accommodation of charging stations for electric vehicles. The elimination of natural gas in buildings, combined with the demand for vehicle charging stations, creates an additional and potentially significant increase in power demand.

?SUMMARY:

While there is tremendous activity in the real estate market to reposition existing facilities into space for science, there is also a steep learning curve to develop quality facilities able to support the many varied science programs. The level of activity in the market, combined with the increased cost and complexity in constructing these highly technical facilities, creates significant development risk. The best way to reduce risk and achieve success is to work with experienced design and construction professionals to understand the unique project requirements and implement appropriate development strategies.