NEWS

CHAPEL HILL – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill today (April 21) celebrated a groundbreaking for its new state-of-the-art Carolina Physical Science Complex, which will usher in a new era of research and discovery in Chapel Hill benefiting North Carolina, the nation and the world.

The $205 million complex is the largest construction project in the history of the nation’s first public university. It will enhance Carolina’s longtime interdisciplinary strengths by bringing together faculty and students in high-technology laboratories, classrooms, lecture halls and libraries.

Those facilities will house the departments of chemistry, computer science, marine sciences, mathematics and physics and astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences, as well as a new Institute for Advanced Materials, Nanoscience and Technology.

"The Carolina Physical Science Complex is arguably the most important project in our capital construction program because it will ensure that Carolina continues to have world-class faculty and students and remains a leader in science and technology among top research universities," said Chancellor James Moeser. "The science complex will also benefit North Carolina’s economy by training scientific leaders and advancing knowledge vital to our state’s successful future."

Moeser spoke at a campus ceremony with UNC President Molly Corbett Broad, Richard "Stick" Williams, chairman of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees, and W. Lowry Caudill, chair of the complex steering committee.

About 200 attendees also had the opportunity to walk a new self-guided science trail along the construction site perimiter that highlights the departments moving into the new facilities.

"This project is about much more than these buildings alone," Caudill said. "Its impact on the scientific community and on future generations of North Carolinians will be immeasurable."

When the complex is completed in 2009, UNC faculty and students will conduct research and learn in high-technology lecture halls and laboratories that include vibration-free space for electron microscopes, laser labs, teleconference rooms, and special shielding to avoid electronic interference. These innovative labs will provide the best resources – with sufficient space the university now lacks – for the latest in research.

The science complex results from a public-private partnership driven by the 2000 Higher Education Bond Referendum. When North Carolina citizens voted for the referendum, they approved nearly $84 million for the complex. That was the referendum’s single largest allocation for any project across the 16-campus UNC system.

The university is raising more than $22 million in private gifts for the science complex as part of the Carolina First campaign, a comprehensive, multi-year effort to support the university’s vision of becoming the nation’s leading public university. The campaign goal is $1.8 billion.

UNC scientists also are helping finance the science complex construction costs. Research grants they are awarded by the federal government and other sources bring with them overhead receipts – reimbursements for the cost of conducting research – that are part of the project’s financing plan.

Moeser announced at the ceremony that Dr. Royce Murray, a longtime chemistry professor at Carolina, would be honored with a place at the heart of the new complex. The Royce Murray Quadrangle will be located in the largest of the green spaces planned in the complex. The space was named as part of a $3 million gift by Caudill and his wife Suzi. Murray, Kenan professor and former chemistry department chair, was Lowry’s mentor during his time at UNC-Chapel Hill. The Murray quadrangle is expected to be completed in 2009 after building construction ends.

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Note: For a sidebar on the Murray quadrangle, go to http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/apr04/complexside042104.html.

Weblink:  http://sciences.unc.edu

News Services contacts: Mike McFarland, (919) 962-8593