University Of Arkansas For Medical Sciences receives $4.5M Congressional Directives grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration

Facilities and equipment for renovations to uams barton bridge to translational research. - the University Of Arkansas For Medical Sciences (uams) requests $4,500,000 under HRSA-26-107 to establish the barton bridge to translational research, a centralized hub that will accelerate the movement of uams biomedical discoveries from the laboratory to patient care for arkansans. The project will build out approximately 14,000 gross square feet across two currently shelled floors of the barton research building on the uams main campus in little rock, Arkansas, and will equip the completed space with the furniture, computers, and technology required to operationalize it. The completed facility will house the uams division of research and innovation administrative staff and the uams bioventures team. These functions are the operational backbone that determines how quickly a uams laboratory discovery becomes an approved therapy, diagnostic, or device available to patients in the uams clinical enterprise. Co-locating grant management, animal facility oversight, fda-regulated clinical trial coordination, human subjects research compliance, research security, and technology commercialization in the barton research building — immediately adjacent to the uams biomedical research buildings and a short walk from the uams hospital — will materially shorten the time between scientific discovery and clinical impact for cancer, infectious disease, neurobiology, and other conditions that affect arkansans. The barton research building is owned by the board of trustees of the university of Arkansas and operated by uams. Uams will record a notice of federal interest in the real property records of pulaski county, Arkansas, in accordance with 42 u.s.c. § 300S-1A and HRSA grant policy. The $4,500,000 budget covers administrative and legal expenses ($70,000), architectural and engineering fees ($135,000), other architectural and engineering fees including surveys and testing ($30,000), project inspection fees ($59,000), interior construction of the two shelled floors ($2,238,095), equipment including furniture, computers, and technology ($1,854,500), miscellaneous fees ($1,500), and contingency ($111,905). Uams will procure design services and construction services as two separate procurements. The a&e firm will be selected through a standalone qualifications-based selection (qbs) process under the Arkansas architects, engineers, and land surveyors selection act (Arkansas code annotated § 19-11-801 et seq.), the federal brooks act, and 2 cfr 200.320(b)(2). The general contractor will be competitively bid under the design-bid-build method and awarded to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder under the Arkansas procurement law and the federal procurement standards at 2 cfr 200.317 through 200.327. As a state agency, uams will not identify vendors at the application stage. No non-federal match is required, and uams has no other federal awards or applications that overlap with the proposed scope. The period of performance is september 1, 2026 through august 31, 2028.