As early as 1981, the NIH management began to discuss the need for a long-range plan for maintaining, repairing, and improving the facility’s infrastructure to prevent interruptions in critical research programs. Since that time, NIH facilities staff have conducted or overseen several studies and investigations to determine how best to continue supporting the research while staying within budget constraints.
· The 1980s – The ORS Division of Engineering Services (DES) initiated The Clinical Center Complex Infrastructure Modernization and Improvement Program (CCC-IMIP) and commissioned a comprehensive analysis of the Complex. This analysis revealed that utility systems were at or near the end of their useful lives; utility capacity severely limited the ability to reconfigure laboratories to meet new initiatives (HVAC demand exceeded capacity by 50%); and an immediate and aggressive major renewal was needed to prevent a possible catastrophic disturbance in patient care and research. NIH directed its Special Projects Office to study the feasibility of a replacement facility, and, at the same time, Congress asked the Public Health Service to have the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers do a technical evaluation of the NIH Facilities Revitalization Program.
· The 1990s – NIH evaluated six design concepts and engineering alternatives ranging from reducing programs housed in the Clinical Center to completely replacing the facility. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers investigated alternatives based on factors such as cost, disruption, time, and functionality and found that renovating Clinical Center space for laboratories was not viable. The cost of replacing the entire facility was too great to pursue. NIH decided to construct a new hospital and lab space to the south of the existing facility and renovate Building 10A and the ACRF for laboratory space. Work on the new Clinical Research Center began in January 1999. At the same time, NIH began the Essential Safety & Maintenance Program (EMS), also known as the Transition/Revitalization program, as a temporary solution to address immediate pressing utility concerns.
· The 2000s – Early in the decade, a variety of studies continued to note problems and increasing risk due to the building’s aging infrastructure. Cost, however, prevented NIH from launching a comprehensive revitalization of the building. To reduce the risk of a building failure that would lead to the loss of research, Dr. Michael Gottesman, Deputy Director for Intramural Research, and Leonard Taylor, Acting Director of the Office of Research Facilities, issued the Building 10 Vacant Space Policy. This policy requires space vacated by occupancy of the new Clinical Research Center to revert to NIH Director’s Reserve. The space will remain vacant and locked until new plans for Building 10 are defined. A clarification of the policy was approved by Dr. Zerhouni in October 2003. The Vacant Space Policy and the clarification (called the Renovations Restriction Policy) are available at http://orf.od.nih.gov/building10.htm. In June 2003, the Building 10 Transition Program focused on modifying the lower level of the CCC to improve functionality, while the Revitalization Program was redefined as three separate programs:
o A Translational (Core) Research Program to create clinical adjacencies in Building 10 and to move research that does not require clinical adjacencies (about 260,000 nsf) to new labs in the South Quad area. This includes a new Animal Research Center (ARC);
o Building 10 Stabilization, the goal of which is to mothball areas left vacant by moves into the CRC and move remaining occupants of these wings into other space in order to completely empty the central wings to reduce overall utility load;
o Interim Relocation Program, designed to find temporary homes for research programs that are moved out of the central wings until they can be renovated.
