300 Morris Street

Located in downtown Durham, 300 Morris Street, a seven-story high-rise was built and partially occupied as an office building then converted to attract life science tenants. Longfellow, a well-known life science developer, hired MHAworks to design fit-up of existing spaces on the 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 7th floors into laboratory tenant space. Building utilities required to support life science/lab use were designed and installed. Once completed, the building had 11 move-in-ready lab tenant spaces, totaling 115,000 square feet, and new vertical exhaust duct towers on the exterior of the building.

300 Morris Street presented many unique challenges and opportunities for the design team. Our team utilized our experience with lab design to develop a creative plan that minimized construction impact on the existing building while still providing sophisticated and functional lab suites for multiple unidentified tenants. Our design understood that casework would be minimally installed until tenant occupancy and worked to identify and reuse as many of the building’s components, including finishes and fixtures, as possible.