The University of Washington today marked the groundbreaking of its Chemical Sciences Building, a $231.1 million facility that will provide new laboratories for instruction and research in areas including sustainable chemistry, human health, advanced materials and quantum science.
The five-story, 104,500-square-foot building will replace the Chemistry Library Building, which sits west of Bagley Hall.
The new facility will also allow for a complete renovation of Bagley Hall, the longtime home of the Department of Chemistry. Bagley, which stands alongside the UW’s iconic Drumheller Fountain, was built in 1937.
Funding for construction of the Chemical Sciences Building comes from a $129 million appropriation from Washington state, with the remainder provided by the UW’s College of Arts & Sciences, the UW and private donations. Funding for the Bagley renovation is still being identified, a university spokesperson said.
The new building is slated to open in 2029.
“The work that happens here will help advance science, strengthen our state and improve lives for generations to come,” said UW President Robert Jones in a statement.
The UW’s Department of Chemistry, among the largest in the U.S., has about 275 staff and faculty, according to its online directory. At the start of the 2025 academic year, it reported 985 undergraduate majors and 320 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.
The department managed $28 million in funding in 2025, including grants from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, industry and foundations.
UW and state leaders framed the project as bringing economic and academic benefits, including workforce training, industry collaboration and the ability to attract and retain talented students and researchers.
“Washington’s economy is built on innovation,” said Gov. Bob Ferguson, who attended the groundbreaking. “Maintaining our leadership requires a reliable pipeline of skilled, highly educated workers. We’re proud to be an investor in this state-of-the-art new building.”
The design-build team for the project is Skanska and Payette+EHDD.
The chemistry building will be among the UW’s largest new academic facilities in Seattle since the Interdisciplinary Engineering Building, a 72,000-square-foot College of Engineering facility, opened in the spring of 2025.
The university had planned to build a 345,000-square-foot building just west of the main campus to house research programs in clean energy, protein design and precision medicine. The Brightwork facility was scuttled last year.