October 2, 2026

UW breaks ground on $231M Chemical Sciences Building

Rendering by Payette/EHDD [enlarge]

Payette and EHDD have designed the roughly 104,500-square-foot building.

Celebration filled the air on Wednesday as the University of Washington held a groundbreaking ceremony to mark the start of construction on a new, $231.1 million home for the Department of Chemistry at its Seattle campus.

The 104,500-square-foot, five-story Chemical Sciences Building will rise on the former site of the Chemistry Library behind the Molecular Engineering and Nanoengineering buildings on West Stevens Way Northeast and across from the back side of Bagley Hall, the current main home of the department.

The Chemistry Library was demolished earlier this year. Skanska did that work and is also the general contractor for the Chemical Sciences Building. The architects are Payette of Boston, and local firm EHDD.

Photo courtesy of UW [enlarge]

Gov. Ferguson, fourth from left, was among the attendees at Wednesday’s groundbreaking,

[enlarge]

The new facility is being built on the site of the recently demolished Chemistry Library.

UW's College of Arts & Sciences is home to one of the largest undergraduate chemistry programs in the nation known for cutting-edge/novel research, but the department has been operating out of outdated facilities with inefficient space, especially collaborative space for modern science. Bagley Hall was built in 1937. The chemistry library dated to 1957.

The new building will provide modern space for innovative science and research. It will have classrooms — including an active learning classroom on the ground floor — laboratories, meeting rooms, common collaboration spaces, and office spaces. There will also be space for hands-on independent research projects. Its location next to an existing cluster of science buildings will create new opportunities for research synergies among students and faculty in chemistry and related sciences.

UW says that once completed, “this state-of-the-art building will be a nexus for collaborative research and teaching that will help the UW define the next 100 years of science education and breakthroughs.”

The university says the new facility will also allow for a complete future renovation of Bagley Hall.

The website for the Chemical Sciences Building says it should open in the second quarter of 2029.

Funding comes from the state, the College of Arts & Sciences and private support, UW says. The Chemical Sciences Building project team also includes landscape architect GGN and engineer KPFF.