Cambridge University Reporter


Report of the Council on the refurbishment of the Pfizer Building to house the Cambridge Centre for Imaging and the Laboratory for Stem Cell Medicine

The COUNCIL beg leave to report to the University as follows:

1. The Pfizer Building is located on the University-owned Forvie Site adjacent to the Addenbrooke's Site (see p. 884). The University leased the building to Pfizer for approximately twenty years and bought back the remainder of the lease recently. The building is to be refurbished to house the Cambridge Centre for Imaging and the Laboratory for Stem Cell Medicine (known together as the CCI Project).

2. Departments of the School of Clinical Medicine were all components of 5* Units of Assessment in the last Research Assessment Exercise. To maintain this level of excellence in research it is essential that the School continues to develop 'state of the art' core facilities that can be used by biomedical research scientists across many disciplines. Lack of such facilities has been a serious hindrance to recruitment to senior positions in the Clinical School. The key aims of the CCI Project are: (i) to create a centre for excellence for molecular imaging in Cambridge by establishing state of the art facilities for imaging and phenotyping; (ii) to create appropriate laboratory space for stem cell medicine.

3. The West Wing of the Pfizer Building is to be refurbished to provide the following accommodation for the Cambridge Centre for Imaging, to be managed principally by Central Biomedical Services:

4. The East Wing of the building is to be refurbished to provide the following accommodation for the Laboratory for Stem Cell Medicine:

5. The working area of the building is contained on the ground floor with a small area of first-floor offices in the East Wing. The building is highly serviced and plant is contained within a first-floor plant room that extends over most of the ground-floor area. The gross internal floor area of the West Wing is 2,064 sq.m. and of the East Wing is 839 sq.m.: the total gross internal floor area is 2,903 sq.m.

6. The total cost of the refurbishment project has been estimated as £10.4m and the Clinical School has secured funding from the following sources:

SRIF£6.93m
MRC£2.00m
BHF£0.50m
Clinical School£0.97m

7. It is expected that the new Cambridge Centre for Imaging will incur recurrent operating and maintenance costs of £448,000. These costs will be met from HEFCE QR/Partnership Funding and user charges.

8. Drawings of the proposed project are displayed for the information of the University in the Schools Arcade.

9. The Council recommend:

I. That approval be given for the refurbishment of the Pfizer Building to house the new Cambridge Centre for Imaging and the Laboratory for Stem Cell Medicine.

II. That the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Planning and Resources) be authorized to accept tenders, within the available funding, for the building and all associated works in due course.

24 July 2006ALISON RICHARD, Vice-ChancellorBOB DOWLINGMARTIN REES
 R. J. ANDERSONMARK FERGUSONG. A. REID
 A. J. BADGERM. K. B. KEMPLEDAVID SIMON
 Z. BARANSKITIM LEWISVERONICA SUTHERLAND
 RICHARD BARNESD. LOWTHERLIBA TAUB
 NIGEL BROWND. W. B. MACDONALDJOAN M. WHITEHEAD
 WILLIAM BROWNJAMES MATHESONRICHARD WILSON

The plan of the site is available to download as a PDF: