A groundbreaking ceremony for the Research Village at the University of Florida Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience took place on December 2, 2017, from 11am to noon on the Whitney Laboratory campus. Remarks were made by members of the Whitney Research Village Trustee Committee, including Whitney Laboratory Board of Trustees Chair and Whitney Research Village Trustee Committee Member Katharine Rowe, as well as University of Florida Provost Joseph Glover.
The Research Village will expand capacity at Whitney Laboratory to educate more students and welcome more visiting scientists for advanced biomedical and marine research. Additional housing will be available for visiting students and scientists by fall 2018 and involves the construction of six cottages, which will double housing capacity by 24 beds at Whitney Laboratory.
“The Research Village at Whitney Laboratory helps us move toward preeminence in marine science and furthers the University of Florida’s strengths as a top 10 public university,” said Whitney Laboratory Director Mark Martindale.
The cottages have been designed and will be constructed to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards. Each two-story cottage will accommodate up to four guests with four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The Research Village will also feature outdoor spaces such as a classroom, living room and collaboration areas surrounded by a planned dune restoration landscape.
“Education is a key component of Whitney Laboratory’s mission, and the collaboration to fund the Research Village showed that the community strongly supports this expansion of Whitney Laboratory’s education programming,” said Jessica Long, director of development and external relations at Whitney Laboratory.
The Whitney Research Village Trustee Committee members are Chair Patrick Hamilton, Brian Keller, John Perkner, Katharine Rowe, Douglass Wiles, Mark Martindale and Jessica Long. The Research Village is funded in part by donors and the University of Florida. Each of the six cottages will be named in honor of the donations received. In addition, the State of Florida was essential in starting the project with an initial appropriation to expand the campus at Whitney Laboratory.
For more information, visit www.whitney.ufl.edu or call 904-461-4000.
