A New Front Door: The Cancer Center Gets a Makeover

In many ways, Wallace Tumor Institute (WTI) is the hub of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center, but you might never know it from the street. Built in 1976 on 6th Avenue South between 18th and 19th Streets, the building is tucked among newer and taller medical facilities, concealing the Department of Radiation Oncology and four floors of laboratory research space behind its all-brick façade.            

Now a $30-million renovation, announced by the University of Alabama System Board of Trustees in late 2008, will literally put the building in a whole new light, overhauling WTI’s look and use.            

“The buildings around WTI—UAB Hospital’s North Pavilion and the Women and Infants Center—have a consistent look,” says Cancer Center director Edward Partridge, M.D. “Our building just doesn’t fit in.” The renovation will solve that problem by adding limestone accents and glass, including large windows for the first three floors, to brighten the exterior and open up the interior. “People will be able to drive by and actually see scientists in their labs conducting cancer research,” Dr. Partridge says.            

He is particularly excited about another important addition: a clearly marked front door. Currently, WTI has a small side entrance that opens into a small elevator lobby. The new design features a large, bright, glass-walled entryway that clearly identifies the Cancer Center.            

Once inside, visitors will immediately notice the changes to the building’s formerly enclosed interior. The lobby will lead to a cantilevered stairway that opens onto the first and second floors. An atrium, topped with a skylight, will bring plenty of natural sunlight into the four upper stories.            

“WTI’s current top three floors are all laboratory research spaces, and they are basically a maze of hallways,” Dr. Partridge says. “In the new design, open labs will surround the atrium, so scientists can look out their doors and see what their colleagues across the way are doing.” These floors also will include conference rooms and communal spaces where researchers can gather and discuss ideas.

Funded through state bonds and UAB’s physical plant budget, the WTI project is scheduled to begin in 2010, following the completion of the new Hazelrig-Salter Radiation Oncology Facility, which is now under construction. Once the renovation is complete in 2011, the Cancer Center’s administrative offices, currently housed in UAB Hospital’s North Pavilion, will join the research labs in WTI.

“The Cancer Center is such a huge enterprise that we can’t be contained in a single building,” Dr. Partridge says. “But having our core team in one central location in the ‘heart’ of the clinical enterprise and with a ‘friendly’ front door is incredibly exciting and something we’ve needed for a long time.”