Biomedical building is coming to Penn

The University of Pennsylvania announced plans yesterday to build a $370 million biomedical research facility on its West Philadelphia campus.

The building will expand Penn's research abilities and encourage collaboration by its patient-care centers.

The 10-story, 500,000-square-foot building, to be designed by Rafael Vinoly Architects P.C. of New York, will connect to the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, which is scheduled to open in 2008, and the Roberts Proton Therapy Center, which is to open in 2009.

Financing for the building will come from several sources, including donors and university funds, a Penn spokesman said.

When it opens, teams of researchers will work on a variety of medical problems.

"This building represents an exciting new high point in our tradition of collaborative medical inquiry," Arthur H. Rubenstein, executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania for the health system and the dean of the School of Medicine, said in a statement.

"Through its shared common spaces and support functions, as well as a rich matrix of working alliances for research and therapeutic progress, it will unquestionably play a central role in Penn Medicine's ongoing contribution to the improved health of humankind," he said.

A starting date for construction has not been determined, but completion is scheduled by 2010.