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BY MARK SHWARTZ A groundbreaking ceremony was held Thursday for the Lorry I. Lokey Laboratory Building -- a new research facility for the departments of Chemistry and Biological Sciences. Located at the intersection of Roth Way and Campus Drive West, the three-story, $62.3 million laboratory is slated for completion in August 2003. In her opening remarks, Sharon Long, dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences, said the 85,000-square-foot building will be the most research-intensive laboratory on campus.
The Lorry I. Lokey Laboratory Building will be the most research-intensive laboratory on campus. Courtesy School of Humanites & Sciences "This building is going to house brilliant chemists and cell biologists," she said, noting that the Lokey Laboratory is the first new research facility built for the School of Humanities and Sciences in more than a decade. Long thanked Lokey for his $20 million donation to initiate construction, calling him "the largest individual donor in terms of generosity and gifts to Humanities and Sciences that we know of -- ever." Provost John Etchemendy also praised Lokey for his many contributions to the school over the years. "You have shown astonishing breadth in those gifts. From Jewish Studies to Human Biology to Communication, you have supported the university's teaching and research mission in a remarkable number of ways," Etchemendy said. "Institutions like Stanford and Harvard will always need money. There's no end. It's a bottomless pit," noted Lokey, a professional journalist and founder of Business Wire, who received a bachelor's degree in communication from Stanford in 1949. Lokey told the audience that donating to higher education has given him much more pleasure than owning yachts or vacation homes -- "which I refuse to do. Stanford University has meant a lot. As you go through life and draw from the Earth, so, too, must you put it back." State-of-the-art labs When completed, the building will provide lab space for nine principal investigators -- five from biological sciences and four from chemistry -- and 180 student researchers and postdoctoral fellows. In addition to state-of-the-art laboratories, the facility will house chemical storage rooms, an amphibian research area and a fenced storage yard for a new nitrogen service tank. Plans for the Lokey Laboratory were announced two years ago, in part because new Santa Clara County building codes had rendered the synthetic chemistry laboratories in the adjacent Seeley Mudd Chemistry building obsolete. "No university can be outstanding without top-quality research," Etchemendy noted. "With this gift, Lorry Lokey has removed constraints created by the inadequate and outdated facilities behind you," he said, pointing toward the Seeley Mudd building. Donning hard hats, Etchemendy, Long and Lokey completed the groundbreaking event by digging up ceremonial shovelfuls of dirt. Also in attendance were project manager Wayne Kelly and
members of the building design team: Dowler-Gruman Architects of
Mountain View (architect of record); Ellenzweig Associates Inc. of
Cambridge, Mass. (design architect); Sebastian & Associates of
Laguna Beach (landscape architect); and Rudolph & Sletten of
Foster City (general contractor). |
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Stanford Report, March 6, 2002
