Spokane-based MMEC Architecture & Interiors, which has an office in the Tri-Cities, is designing a $9.5 million office building at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in Richland.

PNNL last month awarded DGR Grant Construction Inc., of Richland, the construction contract for the project at the north end of the PNNL campus, about 150 miles southwest of Spokane, says Susan Bauer, a PNNL spokeswoman.

Construction is set to begin in February and to be completed in early 2017, she says.

The project includes construction of a two-story, 26,000-square-foot facility that will include 53 offices, 64 cubicles, and four conference rooms. More than 100 PNNL employees will conduct energy and national security research in the building, Bauer says.

The office building project is part of an ongoing campus strategy to construct, improve, and maintain facilities and infrastructure to enhance research and development capabilities at PNNL, she says.

PNNL has an annual budget of nearly $1 billion and employs 4,400 people. 

Columbus, Ohio-based Battelle, a private technology development company, manages the PNNL under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Sciences.

MMEC’s flagship office here also is designing the planned $21 million Liberty Creek Elementary School for the Central Valley School District. The longtime design firm formerly known as Madsen Mitchell Evenson & Conrad PLLC also designed Spokane Public Schools’ $26.9 million Finch Elementary School renovation project, in northwest Spokane, and the $12.5 million Jefferson Elementary School replacement project, on the South Hill, in recent years.