Site work for Washington State University's planned $78 million Biomedical and Health Sciences Building on the Riverpoint Campus is expected to start this month.

Bob Askins, of Graham Construction & Management Inc., the general contractor and construction manager on the project, says he expects Red Diamond Construction Inc., of Spokane Valley, will begin excavation work at the site by Aug. 21. Red Diamond is the apparent low bidder, with a bid of $645,000 for initial work at the site, and WSU was expected to approve the subcontractor bid this week.

Askins says Graham will call for additional subcontractor bids in about two months for concrete work.

"We probably will start erecting steel by March, enclose the building by the next fall, and complete the project around July 2013," he says.

The planned 110,000-square-foot building, designed by Seattle architectural firm NBBJ, is expected to accommodate a proposed new medical school, as well as WSU's College of Pharmacy, which will move to the new building from the university's Pullman campus. The building site is located on the north side of Spokane Falls Boulevard, just east of the Intercollegiate College of Nursing .

The initial excavation work calls for removal of up to 25,000 cubic yards of soil and ash from the former Milwaukee Road railway trench. The soil, which Askins says is described as "nonhazardous, but contaminated," was moved to the site and encapsulated there during construction of another building on the Riverpoint Campus in the late 1990s.

U.S. Congress authorized funding for the soil cleanup last year, and earlier this year, the state Legislature approved $35 million for the first half of the building project funding.