University of Cincinnati trustees will be asked Tuesday to spend $7.2 million for design work needed to build a $76 million medical research building.

        Building the Center for Academic and Research Excellence (CARE) would be a big step in UC's “Millennium Plan” for doubling its biomedical research.

        University administrators say they need new laboratories to keep up with evolving research standards and to make room for an even larger project to renovate the Medical Sciences Building, the main facility for UC's College of Medicine.

        The biggest concern about the design payment is that UC officials have not pinned down state funding to build the CARE labs. With lawmakers already saying the budget cannot handle recent court orders to increase funding for primary education, it is not clear when or if the UC project will win funding.

        Even so, moving ahead with design plans and construction documents is worth the risk, according to a proposal by Donald Harrison, senior vice president and provost for health affairs and Dale McGirr, vice president for finance.

        “Proceeding with design of CARE now would allow the scope of work and estimated costs to be more clearly defined and would minimize inflation costs if construction funds become available near-term,” the administrators wrote.

        UC's Millennium plan calls for doubling medical research funding in the next six years to $240 million, hiring 260 new scientists and spending at least $170 million to rebuild the medical sciences building — a figure that factors in the CARE project.

        UC hopes to complete the medical sciences building renovation by 2007.

        Retrofitting that building would involve construction of the 230,000-square-foot CARE project and then renovating the existing 1 million-square-foot building floor by floor.

        Some renovation work at the Medical Sciences Building can begin without the CARE building because some research labs are moving to the former Aventis lab in Reading, acquired earlier this year. However, without the CARE project, UC's ability to expand its research capability would be “seriously compromised,” according to the proposal.

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