A high profile project at Cambridge Crossing

Cambridge Crossing is a new urban neighbourhood and innovation hub at the intersection of Cambridge, Somerville and Boston in the US.

In late 2020, we embarked on a very high profile project with one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies.

We spoke to Chris Colón, Workplace Project Director, to understand more about the project and what it was about MovePlan that set it apart from its competitors throughout the bidding process.

MovePlan has held a master service agreement with one of the US East Coast’s leading research and higher education facilities since 2017.

As a partner of choice for its laboratory moves, MovePlan has relocated over 1,200 staff, 5,300 assets and specialty equipment and been responsible for engaging with over 140 research labs / principal investigators, 80 different specialty equipment vendors (OEMs), and high-value assets.

Relocation of the university’s science building

The first project with the university was also the largest to date: a multidisciplinary site encompassing neuroscience and molecular biology research, comprising 16 stories and 365,000 square feet, including 10 floors of open and adaptable laboratory space.

The work undertaken covered all the laboratories used for education and research purposes, including wet labs. The careful removal and storage of equipment and samples is critical and the MovePlan team is highly experienced in moving not only sensitive, irreplaceable samples, but also high tech equipment, including incubators and freezers, with some newer and more specialised equipment costing over $1M alone. Both require focused planning to ensure items are kept at the correct temperature at all times.

Stacy Krepelka, Workplace Project Director at MovePlan, has overseen a number of the lab moves.

“Every laboratory move is unique and we face a number of challenges which require careful scheduling around the removal of individual items. This needs to take place in phases to ensure equipment is disconnected and reconnected in the right sequence, all the while managing a high number of vendors responsible for each piece of equipment. At any one time we can have upwards of 50 movers and specialist vendors on site. It quickly becomes a very complex operation.”

Driven by the relentless pursuit of innovation, life science companies often experience intense periods of growth. We recently brought together a group from the industry to share strategies and experiences in three key areas:

– Fostering growth
– Overcoming obstacles to growth
– The rise of shared spaces and collaboration

At MovePlan, we believe in actively sharing our expertise and insight with our network. With this in mind, we wanted to share the insights from the event with some practical advice for navigating growth in the life science sector.

Moving a lab is no mean feat, just ask anyone who has ever been through a lab move. In fact, we did just that!

Sarah Speroff, Workplace Project Director, based in Seattle, and Molly Frazier, Senior Workplace Project Manager in San Francisco, share their insight into what it takes to successfully relocate a laboratory. From the months of planning, to building trust with lab users, and all the communication in between, Sarah and Molly provide the inside track – and with over 15 clients and 75+ individual laboratory moves between them, they are the right people to do so.

The evolving workplace was the topic of a roundtable event held by MovePlan’s Canadian Project Director, Michelle Brown. 

Those in attendance heard from our guest speaker, Brian Aman, a Senior Partner with Rogers Communications. He shared how we have an opportunity to evolve the workplace post-pandemic, including how and where work is done.