OMRF Stories - Spring 2009 - OMRF Unveils The Greenprint For A Historic Campus Expansion

Yes, the internationally respected vascular biologist knew all about OMRF and its reputation for scientific achievement. For four years, he’d served on OMRF’s scientific advisory board. Throughout his career, he’d read the scholarly tracts by OMRF’s faculty, listened to them lecture at conferences. In fact, for decades he’d collaborated with Dr. Rod McEver, one of OMRF’s—really, the world’s—leading cardiovascular biology researchers.

Still, Prescott figured he’d take a pass.

Having served as executive director of the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute, he knew what it was like to lead a biomedical research center that excelled in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. But after five years of doing that, the thought of shepherding another institution as it continued upon a smooth, if unexciting, scientific course held little appeal to him.

“OMRF was already excellent,” says Prescott. “I knew that. And while finding a leader who can maintain the status quo in that kind of situation is very important, that’s just not me.

“I like things that are difficult.”

Hmmm. Difficult. How about leading the most ambitious campus expansion in the foundation’s six-decade history? Nearly doubling the size of OMRF’s laboratories? Recruiting dozens of the world’s leading scientists to an independent medical research institute smack-dab in the middle of the country?

“When the board laid out the blueprint for OMRF’s future, that’s when I got excited. I thought, ‘Here is a challenge I can sink my teeth into. Here’s a chance to transform an institution.’” It was, he realized, “the kind of opportunity that you might only see once in a lifetime.”

Prescott, of course, took the job. And three years later, his vision for OMRF’s future is about to become a reality.

On May 18, OMRF broke ground on a new research tower. Rising from the center of OMRF’s campus, the eight-story tower will add 185,000 square feet of state-of-the-art scientific and administrative space. When complete, it will house 34 new labs and a broad array of core technology facilities. It will also be home to a new OMRF clinic, a place where Oklahomans suffering from multiple sclerosis, lupus and other autoimmune diseases can receive treatment from rheumatologists with unsurpassed expertise in the field.

But perhaps the most novel aspect of the facility will be its environmentally efficient design.

The tower will be the first laboratory building in North America to use renewable energy sources to help power the facility, and it will become the second building in Oklahoma to earn gold-level certification for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). Crowned by 24 wind turbines—each designed to echo the shape of a DNA molecule—the tower will be the only medical research facility anywhere to harness the wind to fuel its labs.

“Most people design a building and then ask, ‘How can we make this green?’” says Prescott. “We worked to install the green features first, and then we designed the rest of the building around them.”

The bird-friendly, helix-shaped turbines are soundless and shrouded in materials that accelerate the speed of the wind to double energy output. Unique window and wall designs will bring natural daylight deep inside the tower to reduce electrical lighting, while newly developed energy management technologies will conserve electricity. All told, energy-saving features will decrease the facility’s electricity usage by 37 percent and total power use by 17 percent.

Other key sustainable features include a living roof and rain garden that will prevent runoff pollution and insulate the building. To reduce water consumption, the facility will recycle condensation from the air conditioning system and use native plants in landscaping.

“This project is about being forward-looking and state-of-the-art in everything we do,” he says.

Take a virtual tour
Can’t wait till 2011? Come visit OMRF’s research tower today >> tower.omrf.org.

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