Core Technology Facility, University Of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

The new Core Technology Facility (CTF) is being opened on the Manchester University campus as a nursery for biotech start-up companies in the UK. The €25m facility was launched by The University of Manchester Incubator Company Limited (UMIC) in early 2004; topping out was completed in December 2004 with construction completed in December 2005. The facility finally opened in June 2006.

The CTF is intended as an annex to the nearby bioincubator on the university campus to allow more space for commercial biotech activity. It will also be an area where industry and university departments can intermingle and cooperate with ideas and experience to develop new biotech SMEs (small and medium enterprises).

CTF CONSTRUCTION

The construction contract for the CTF was awarded to HBG Ltd. The building was made weather-tight in March 2005 and to save time in completing the facility an agreement was put in place between HBG Ltd and UMIC to conduct the fit-out phase during the construction programme. The project management was provided by Buro Four. The architect for the project was Fairhurst Design Group.

The accelerated fit-out meant that by December 2005, 75% of the building was fully fitted out and the construction phase was complete. The first tenants moved into the CTF in February 2006, which allowed UMIC to recruit and train new facilities management staff. The conferencing facilities at the CTF are available to all of the tenants and comprise an egg-shaped auditorium that contains a media wall (with all the necessary ICT support), to house up to 100 people.

Alongside the auditorium are two partitioned meeting rooms able to hold 50 people in open plan and 25 in closed format. There are also four smaller sound-proofed meeting rooms with full ICT capability. Office areas for SMEs and start-ups are available with rooms capable of holding eight, 20 or 50 people. The 'Street' area in front of the CTF will be an important hub area for informal meetings and will have catering facilities provided by Avenance.

LABORATORY SPACE

The CTF is a four storey building designed to house two floors of commercial activity associated with the adjacent biotech incubator building, and to provide grow-on space, conferencing facilities and some technical services. In addition, there are two floors of University research activity associated with the faculties of life sciences and medicine. The CTF building includes four modular laboratories, each 2,153ft² (200m²), comprising fitted out write-up and wet-lab areas.

There are also four 'flexi-lab' areas each 5,380ft² (500m²), to be used for either wet-lab, office or a combination of both. Moreover, there are specific and tailored elements of the building. One example is the bioscience information area for companies specialising in bioinformatics, medical informatics and all forms of software/computing development and commercialisation.

FINANCE

The £25m Core Technology Facility was awarded funding by both the North West Development Agency (NWDA, £11m) and the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF, £7m). This money enabled development and additional incubation space for biotechnology and hi-tech start-ups and SMEs.

The University of Manchester has also invested to provide two additional floors of academic research activity (life sciences and medicine) in the building. The North West Universities Association (NWUA) provided support for the project.

BIOTECH INCUBATOR BUILDING

The 86,500ft² (9320m²) biotech incubator building is managed by Manchester Innovation and is located adjacent to the CTF. It is the UK's first campus-based dedicated biotechnology incubator and houses 16 laboratory suites, equipped and functioning at Advisory Committee on Genetic Modification (ACGM) Containment Level 2 with the ability to convert to Level 3. The laboratory suites are intended for high level biomedical and biological research.

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