Skanska Lands $189M Research Facility Contract in Massive Swedish Medical Campus

By Eliza Theiss, Associate Editor

Solna, Sweden—Global project development and construction group Skanska’s Swedish chapter has announced receiving a construction contract for a new research laboratory In Solna, Sweden. Biomedicum (working name), the research facility, will be located at the internationally famed Karolinska Institutet medical university’s Solna campus, in the greater Stockholm region.

Worth approximately $189.2 million (SEK 1.2 billion) Skanska Sweden’s contract entails building a large part of Biomedicum. The highly specialized, ultra-modern, purpose-built facility will accommodate experimental research from several scientific disciplines connected to the medical field, such as neuroscience, medical biochemistry and biophysics, physiology and pharmacology. At over 678,000 square feet and housing 1,700 scientist and ancillary personnel Biomedicum will be one of the largest research facilities in Europe upon its 2018 completion.  The facility will contain laboratories, training facilities, flexible lecture and conference halls and a large central atrium. Designed by Berg/C.F. Møller Architects, the project will be certified according to the Miljöbyggnad standard of the Sweden Green Building Council. Development commenced in June 2013 with preparatory groundwork in the eastern section of the Solna campus.

The contract’s client, Akademiska Hus, is Sweden’s second largest real estate company and a fully state-owned company in charge of planning, constructing, owning and managing the real estate assets of the country’s universities and colleges. Karolinska Institutet will be the tenant of the asset.

Founded in 1810, Karolinska Institutet , one of the world’s leading medical universities, is in the midst of an over expansion, that will include constructing 960,000 square feet of new space and vacating over 480,000 square feet of currently occupied space. New construction includes the Biomedicum research facility, the Aula Medica 1,000-seat lecture hall, the Widerström Building, housing the office of public health and education and Gamma and the third phase of the Karolinska Institutet Science Park, home to several life-science companies.

Biomedicum is located across from New Karolinska Solna (NKS), the $2.28 billion (SEK 14.5 billion) new university hospital campus currently under development, with which Biomedicum will have a collaborative partnership. Skanska’s largest ever undertaking, NKS broke ground in 2010 and comprises a technological building, research laboratory, parking garage, hospital, patient hotel and garage, all set to complete by October 2017. The development of NKS, is an equal share public-private partnership between Stockholm City Council and a consortium formed by Skanska and British investment fund Inisfree.

The highly sustainable project will be one of the first university hospitals in the world to be environmentally certified—NKS is set to achieve gold level in the Environmentally Classified Building standard and a minimum rating of Gold in the LEED system. The construction site is also compliant with Skanska’s “Green Site” system that implements sustainable solutions such as energy efficiency, waste management and diversion from landfills. Furthermore, the development’s energy supply will also be aiming for climate neutrality with the use of onsite geothermal heating and various other renewable energy sources.