The University of Wyoming Board of Trustees today (Monday) approved a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) for construction of the Robert and Carol Berry Biodiversity and Conservation Center.
Trustees approved a GMP of $14,458,804, as proposed by Haselden Wyoming Constructors, Inc., the project's construction manager-at-risk. The establishment of a GMP ensures the costs of the project will not exceed the agreed-upon price.
With approval of the GMP, Haselden will now begin competitively bidding the subcontracts and major material suppliers.
The center is being funded through a $10 million donation in 2007 from Robert and Carol Berry, specifically for this project, and a like amount of academic facilities matching funds from the state.
"The Berry Center is key to one of our longstanding Academic Plan goals," UW President Tom Buchanan says. "The center will not only serve to elevate academic offerings in the life sciences, which we identified as an area of distinction in the creation of our first Academic Plan in 1999, but provide a recruiting magnet for faculty and students and stimulate innovative research."
The proposed $20 million, 40,000-square-foot center, to be built west of the Earth Sciences Center, will bring together the university's botany and zoology collections, the Wyoming Natural Diversity Database and the Nucleic Acid Exploration Facility.
More than half of the center will be devoted to shared research and educational outreach, offices, classrooms, a lecture hall, seminar rooms and a demonstration area.
Posted on Monday, June 15, 2009