As the joint venture managing partner, McCarthy is delivering the $907 million, 707,000-square-foot National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility Animal Disease Laboratory (NBAF) complex, which integrates human, foreign animal, and zoonotic disease research, development and testing that allows for research to enhance agricultural and public health. NBAF contains significant space devoted to secure, biocontainment labs, rated BSL-2, -3, -3Ag and -4. Research support spaces include cold rooms, fermentation rooms, imaging and animal holding. The campus features one main laboratory building located on a 50-acre site with a central energy plant, entry guard house, central receiving facility and parking.
Every external surface of the NBAF Animal Disease Laboratory that houses BSL space is being built to resist impact and pressure loading, including walls, roofs and windows. The facility is designed to stringent containment, blast-resistant and anti-terrorism requirements as well as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) high wind design criteria adopted by the Department of Homeland Security.