The University of Michigan celebrated the grand opening of its new College of Pharmacy building last Friday, a six-story, 142,000-square-foot facility that its architects say is now the tallest mass timber research building in the world. The ceremony capped years of delayed construction and consolidated a program that had been scattered across seven separate buildings on campus.
As reported by CBS News Detroit, the building features sustainable design concepts throughout its six stories. Designed by RDG Planning & Design, the structure is the first mass timber building on U-M's campus, using engineered wood in place of much of the steel typically found in large research facilities.
That construction choice is not just cosmetic. According to RDG, the hybrid mass timber structure achieved a 59% reduction in embodied carbon compared to a traditional steel building, while the design projects a 62.3% cut in energy costs as the facility pursues LEED Gold certification.
A Long Road From a 1960s Building to Huron Street
The project traces back to May 2019, but pandemic-era capital freezes paused it soon after. The University of Michigan's Board of Regents did not resume the effort until October 2022, when it approved a revised $141 million budget and schematic design, up from the original $121 million estimate, according to the university.
The delay and cost increase reflected just how badly the college needed a new home. Before the new facility opened, the College of Pharmacy operated out of a 1960 building on Church Street, where narrow structural bays and low ceiling heights made modern lab reconfigurations essentially impossible, per the University of Michigan. A 1992 addition to that building failed to solve the long-term space crunch, forcing pharmacy operations to spread across seven separate buildings on campus.
Bridging Academic and Medical Campus
The new building sits at 1007 E. Huron St. at the corner of Glen Avenue, positioned between U-M's Central Campus and its Medical Campus. The University of Michigan College of Pharmacy notes that the location was chosen deliberately, allowing pharmacy students to move easily between academic instruction and medical center rounds.
Inside, the six-story complex now consolidates pharmacy operations into a single location featuring 22 active research laboratories, nine research pods, five active-learning classrooms, clinical simulation spaces, and a 24-hour student market, per the college's own account of the project.
Students Moved In Before the Ribbon-Cutting
Although the University of Michigan held its grand celebration and ribbon-cutting last Friday, the building had already been operational for months. It officially opened to students on March 9, following spring break, timed so the graduating Class of 2026 could complete their final semester inside the new facility, according to U-M LSA Technology Services.
The ceremonial opening was also scheduled to align with a milestone for the college itself. The grand opening coincided with the College of Pharmacy's 150th anniversary, honoring a program established in 1876 as the first college of pharmacy housed within a public university in the United States, the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy said.
Stormwater Systems and Parking Tradeoffs
Beyond the building itself, site development included an underground stormwater management system with storage tanks designed to capture runoff from a 100-year storm event before gradually releasing water into regional groundwater, according to reporting from Building Design+Construction.
The project also eliminated 24 existing surface parking spaces at the Huron Street site, and the finished building includes no visitor parking on-site. Staff and visitors are instead directed to nearby structures like the Palmer Drive Parking Structure or local public transit routes that serve the Huron Street corridor.
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