Washington State University says it has selected Graham Construction & Management Inc., of Spokane Valley, to act as general contractor and construction manager for the planned $78 million first phase of the Biomedical and Health Sciences Building to be located on WSU's Riverpoint Campus here.

Ryan Ruffcorn, WSU's director of capital planning and development in Spokane, says the university hopes to secure construction funding for the project during the next session of the Legislature, so construction can start next July, with an expected completion date of 2013. The planned site for the building is on the north side of Spokane Falls Boulevard, just east of the Intercollegiate College of Nursing Building, which was completed in 2008.

The scope of the proposed 110,000-square-foot building has more than doubled in size from the 45,000-square-foot structure WSU originally envisioned. The larger floor plan will accommodate WSU's College of Pharmacy, which will move to the Spokane Campus from the university's main campus in Pullman, and a proposed four-year branch campus of the Seattle-based University of Washington School of Medicine, Ruffcorn says.

So far, the Legislature has allocated $7.8 million for project design. Last year, WSU selected Seattle architectural firm NBBJ to design the building.

U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell have vowed to seek $5.3 million in federal funds for cleanup of contaminated soil at the site that was moved from an old railroad bed and encapsulated there during construction of the Sirti building on the Riverpoint Campus.

Future phases of the building would be north and east of the first-phase structure, according to WSU's master plan, which calls for construction of more than 300,000 square feet of additional space on its Spokane campus by 2015.

WSU selected Graham from a short list of three general contractors that also included Lydig Construction Inc., of Spokane, and Portland, Ore.-based Hoffman Construction Co.

Graham's current jobs include constructing two portions of the North Spokane Corridor under contracts totaling $59 million.