UPMC Seeks Space for Cancer Research

By Christopher Snowbeck, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Mar. 10–The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is hunting for 350,000 square feet of space for cancer research — and hopes to fund its effort through the state’s share of the tobacco settlement money.

Word of the UPMC project came in a budget hearing yesterday in Harrisburg, with Secretary of Community and Economic Development Dennis Yablonsky saying it was the type of initiative that could be funded through the proposed Jonas Salk Legacy Fund.

Last month, Gov. Ed Rendell proposed using a portion of the tobacco settlement to secure a $500 million bond issue, the proceeds of which would be invested in the state’s bioscience industry.

UPMC spokeswoman Jane Duffield would not say whether the medical center is proposing to construct a building or renovate an existing structure.

“The building will be approximately 350,000 square feet and will provide for continued rapid growth of [the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute's] cancer research program, and also for related programs of biomedical research at Pitt and UPMC,” Ms. Duffield said.

UPMC has an option to purchase the former Ford Motor Co. building at Baum Boulevard and Morewood Avenue in Bloomfield, near the Hillman Cancer Center across from Shadyside Hospital on Centre Avenue.

The former Ford structure could be transformed into a home for cancer research, George Huber, a senior vice president for corporate relations and regional programming at UPMC, said in an interview last month. “There are other land opportunities, as well,” he added, but “the first thought would be to build near the Hillman Cancer Center.”

Currently, 19 percent of the state’s tobacco settlement revenue — or about $70 million per year — funds research projects through a program administered by the state Department of Health. Mr. Rendell would take half of that money to make yearly payments on the $500 million bond issue.

Thirteen other states and Washington, D.C., already are using some of their tobacco settlement funds in this way, officials said. The 1998 settlement with leading tobacco companies is directing billions of dollars to 46 states over a 25-year period.

But the state Legislature must approve the idea before tobacco funds could be used on the bond issue.

Tom Barnes contributed from Harrisburg.

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