Matthew Fondeur/University Photography

Work begins at the New Life Sciences Technology Building construction site Sept. 9. Leaping from the cab of the bulldozer at right is Michael Paolangi '96.

Digging the foundation for the new $140 million Life Sciences Technology Building (LSTB) at Cornell University has begun. In mid-August, 15 dump trucks began hauling dirt, and completion of excavation of the Alumni Field site on Tower Road east of Garden Avenue is expected by the end of October.

The building, designed by noted architect Richard Meier '56, is scheduled to open in late 2007, when it will become the centerpiece of Cornell's New Life Sciences Initiative, a $600 million cross-campus research program.

Construction manager Brian Brown issued a warning to the campus community about the danger of walking along the south side of Tower Road across the driveway leading into the construction site. "We continue to battle with the safety aspects of people walking in front of the construction entrance," said Brown. People are advised to obey the signs that are posted and cross the street and use the sidewalk on the other side.

As workers remove dirt, they are installing a 20-foot-deep shoring system. Recently, the last of 106 vertical beams were put in place. Wood boards are placed between the vertical beams to create retaining walls to hold back the earth.

Trucks are delivering stripped topsoil to the Cornell grounds department for reuse around campus, and 40 percent of the subgrade dirt is being used to create new soccer fields on Game Farm Road. The remainder will refill an abandoned stone quarry off Ellis Hollow road.

The crew also recently moved utility lines, including irrigation pipes and buried electrical conduits encased in concrete. Storm and sanitary pipelines are being rerouted to the north of the new building.

Brown said that in late October crews will begin putting in the building's concrete basement foundation. He hopes to have that completed by spring and the frame of each floor built by the fall of 2006. Then the application of the building's exterior skin will begin.

"So by Christmas 2006, we should have something that looks like a building," Brown said.