P2S Thought Leadership Series
An emerging trend in the biotechnology, pharma, university and advanced manufacturing sectors is repurposing existing facilities into laboratory and cleanroom spaces. So-called adaptive reuse of space offers cost savings, is faster than new construction and comes with several sustainability benefits. However, adaptive reuse is not always a possibility. Some highly specialized environments may just absolutely require being built new. And some existing facilities have infrastructure limitations that make repurposing the space unviable. But when requirements and existing infrastructure allow it, clients find that adaptive reuse enables their growth with quick project turnarounds and lower costs. Some owners also find that adaptive reuse ties into their sustainability and emission reduction goals.
Mechanical Engineer Yoni Butbul has designed lab MEP systems for clients like Pfizer, LabCorp, the Salk Institute, UCSD and many others. He has over ten years of experience in the design industry and has worked on his fair share of complex lab projects. We spoke to Yoni to learn more about the conditions and judgment calls that clients make concerning adapting existing spaces into new labs or building from scratch, why some labs will always need to be constructed new, the challenges of adaptive reuse and more in this latest edition of the P2S Thought Leadership Series!
Yoni, it’ s great to get your thoughts on this emerging topic. What factors do owners consider when deciding to repurpose an existing space for a new lab or going the new construction route?
Many times, owners will have existing facilities that, unless they’ re considering a really big renovation, they’ ll ask themselves, does it make sense to go to a new build? More often than not, owners will decide to use existing spaces as opposed to building new ones just because of the obvious cost savings. Owners will look to see if the required utilities and the actual physical space available are adequate through a quick feasibility study of some kind. Usually, the most important considerations are proximity to other research and cost savings.
FEATURING Yoni Butbul
Senior Mechanical Engineer
Once that feasibility study confirms viability, what are the next steps?
Typically, the owners will have a third party run another feasibility study to confirm the initial one. After that, they might release an RFP to solicit design for the space or go with the same team that did the study. The nice thing about confirming feasibility for a design team is that by this point, we’ ve found most of the skeletons in the closet, like existing conditions that could complicate the job or cause long delays in the project. That helps us when we get into the actual design because we’ ve already vetted out so much.
Some clients might repurpose an outdated lab to create a new one. But what about when you repurpose, say, an industrial space for life sciences use? Why can this process be more challenging?
We’ re looking at a project for a client at Loma Linda University, where they’ re building a cellular therapy lab. Right now, we’ re looking at schematics and design feasibility for converting an older strip mall building into a cellular therapy lab with lots of cleanrooms and lots of utility requirements. We first needed to assess the fitment of the cleanrooms, the ductwork and all the other utilities. Projects like this usually demand a lot of upfront analysis to validate that the space will really work.
Clients will tell us,“ Look, we need this equipment in the lab,” and they’ ll have an idea of functions and requirements. So, we’ ll start with some high-level preliminary load calculations and airflow requirements
4 P2S MAGAZINE SPRING 2025