Assanis said that Building X is a key part of UD’s strategy to help expand and strengthen its positive influence on the state’s workforce. 

“Like UD’s other capital investments, Building X will support jobs, create demand for goods and services, and generate statewide tax revenues,” Assanis said. “It will contribute to the vibrant opportunities that UD provides to students, workers and communities throughout Delaware.”

The construction of Building X was partially funded with assistance from the state’s portion of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), a federal stimulus, “for which UD is very grateful for the tremendous help in advancing this project,” Assanis said as he thanked former Gov. John Carney. The remaining costs were borne by the University, including through fundraising efforts that could lead to donor naming opportunities for the building. 

Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. led the construction of Building X. Construction also included more than 18 Delaware-based contracting companies that worked on almost 80% of the building, said Peter Krawchyk, the University’s vice president of facilities, real estate and auxiliary services.

Sean Healy, CEO of contractor Healy, Long and Jevin and a representative of Delaware Union Contractors Association (DUCA), discussed the importance and value of hiring local and union labor. He said that Building X “is a model example of how a collaborative effort between the University, state legislatures, and Delaware contractors in building trades can bring a project from concept to reality.”  

Then Interim Governor Bethany Hall-Long said the collaborative effort is “monumental.” Adding that “the unimaginable, including cures and the best treatments, will be generated from its labs because of everyone’s investment into the sciences and the completion of Building X.”

Some students and faculty will begin to use Building X in February 2025. The hub is expected to be in full use by summer 2025. 

Building X is 8% larger than McKinly and will house 66% more faculty than before, Krawchyk said. It was designed and constructed to help make the 130,000-square-foot modern-looking building a focal point of campus. 

The first floor has a “walk through” concept and large internal glass windows enclosing a classroom and a research lab on the left and right, respectively. On the way to their destination, all who walk through Building X may see undergraduate students learning on one side and researchers making discoveries on the other, Krawchyk said. 

“We never know when there will be a student in their glass-paneled class across the hall looking through the windows of the research lab, and they become excited,” Krawchyk said. “When you have a young person who is excited, dreams occur. When dreams occur, imagine what can happen in our society.”

Lindsey Roper, assistant professor in biological sciences, is looking forward to having undergraduate students in Building X. “Authentic research experience offers them the opportunity to be in the discovery phase of scientific research,” she said.

Building X will help UD to educate and prepare more than 1,000 students a year. Many of them will go on to work in Delaware’s technology, life sciences and health care industries. These are sectors that have a large and growing need for leaders, workers and entrepreneurs, Assanis said.

Krawchyk described the basement of Building X as “cutting-edge flexibility.” It is vibration-free, which is ideal for the quantum science research that will be conducted there. He said that it also has built-in flexibility should there be a need to increase the number of fume hoods in years to come. It also has a new satellite location to UD’s world-class Bio-Imaging Center, providing new tools for cell and tissue imaging, as well as laboratories for the fabrication and characterization of advanced materials. Such core facilities are available for use by researchers across campus and by industry partners.

The first floor also brings together physicists, materials scientists and biophysicists to explore quantum science and technology to spur development of revolutionary new materials and devices. UD recently joined the Mid-Atlantic Quantum Alliance and has launched a new graduate program in Quantum Science and Engineering, with the first cohort having started in fall 2022.

The second floor, where studies of human disease from Alzheimer’s to infertility will occur, is outfitted with workspaces and labs. It also has a skybridge that leads to the Center for Biomedical and Brain Imagining next door to allow researchers and study volunteers easy access to elite scientific instruments such as the fMRI, which provides a harmless, non-invasive way of revealing brain regions that are active during a particular task or emotion. 

On the third floor, which focuses on mind and brain behavior, Tania Roth, chair of UD’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, showed off the open lab space that will be used for training purposes. This design advances science and encourages collaboration, she said. The space also includes private areas for research study participants and the neuroscience program, which covers mental health topics, including depression, addiction and emotional disorders.  

The impact of Building X on education, scholarship and the region’s economy is just getting started, Assanis said. “It will enable exciting research partnerships within the state and beyond, which will make it an important asset for our entire community for generations to come.”