New Engineering and Science Building

The University of Chicago will construct a new world-class engineering and science building on our Hyde Park campus that will serve as UChicago’s main center for engineering research and teaching.
The new engineering and science building, to be located at the southwest corner of Ellis Avenue and 56th Street adjacent to the William Eckhardt Research Center on the site currently occupied by the Accelerator Building and HEP, will principally house the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) and, importantly, a brand-new collaborative space for growing the Chicago Quantum Exchange (CQE) in close partnership with quantum researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

The building will be equipped with laboratory and other research space needed for transformative engineering and science research and breakthroughs. It will extend UChicago’s capabilities to serve as a training ground for next-generation engineering and science. 

The CQE Project is receiving $175M total in state grants awarded to the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for the construction of the CQE facility aimed at accelerating quantum information science and technology in Illinois. Housing CQE in the new building will help support city, region, state-wide, and potentially global partnerships, truly establishing Chicago and Illinois as a hub for cutting-edge quantum research and commercialization.

The schematic design should be completed in late 2024. Main construction and foundation work will start in 2025 and be completed in 2028. HDR Architecture and Allison Grace Williams will design the building with a team renowned for their work in designing high-performance spaces for elevated scientific discovery and human experience. Construction activities will be led by Mortenson Construction Company. 

For information about NESB Enabling Projects, click on the links below:

• Molecular Engineering Modular Offices (formerly TAAC) Addition
  Remodeling/repurposing of the existing TAAC building (15,585 s.f.), a new mobile office trailer addition (3,831 s.f.), and relocation of Research Computing Center (RCC) from the existing TAAC to the 3rd floor of the 6054 S. Drexel Building.

• WCCUP Chiller
  The anticipated NESB building cooling load (AC, PCW, LTW) will be served by a connection to the campus central utility plant chilled water loop. This newly imposed design load will exceed the current available chilled water capacity. The WCCUP was designed with shell space available to add a future chiller to increase capacity when needed. Before incurring demand to condition spaces in the new NESB building (finish installations) one additional chiller is anticipated to be added to WCCUP.

• Accelerator Building Demolition
  Decommissioning and demolition of the existing Accelerator (ACC) building for the NESB construction site. 

• High Energy Building Demolition
  Decommissioning and demolition of the existing High Energy Physics (HEP) building for the NESB construction site.