FDA Begins Construction of Testing Center in Irvine

Construction has begun on a major new testing center in Irvine for the Food and Drug Administration, but for dozens of researchers currently working in an old building in downtown Los Angeles, the move can’t come fast enough.

Parking at the Pico Boulevard facility is a nightmare. The labs are saddled with outdated technology and plagued with poor ventilation, making it sometimes difficult to conduct safety tests on food and drugs.

And then there’s the asbestos.

For an agency charged with ensuring the safety of a host of food and medical products for the public, the presence of asbestos in the ceilings of the two-story building has been a fact of life for the nearly 40 years that FDA scientists and other agents have worked in that facility.

Though no one has reported specks of asbestos falling from the ceilings, its mere existence worries employees.

By contrast, the $36-million building under construction on a 10-acre site acquired five years ago from UC Irvine should be free of risks from known carcinogens and hazardous and toxic materials.

It will feature state-of-the-art labs for testing food, medical devices, pesticides and other products. It also will have views of the university and a marshy wetland of Upper Newport Bay.

“It’s like going from a Royal typewriter to a laptop,” said Gil Meza, a spokesman for the FDA’s Los Angeles district.

About 200 agency scientists, investigators and administrators will work at the 133,000-square-foot laboratory-office when it opens in mid-2003.

Among other duties, scientists at the Irvine lab will conduct tests on the safety of a laundry list of products, from imported fruits and vegetables to medicines. The new digs also are expected to help scientists and technicians give their stamps of approval--or rejection--more quickly.

About 120 employees will come from an FDA administrative office in Irvine, and the rest will be from the Los Angeles lab, which will close.

The new facility is the last of five multipurpose testing labs being built nationwide as part of the agency’s effort since the early 1990s to consolidate its analytical facilities. In all, 18 aging labs will be consolidated into the five centers and four specialty labs by 2014.

The streamlining is expected to save the agency money and increase operating efficiencies, said Ernie Lunsford, the FDA’s director of facilities planning, engineering and safety. No layoffs are expected, he said.

The FDA multipurpose labs are in Irvine, Seattle, New York, Atlanta and Jefferson, Ark. The agency’s specialty facilities in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Winchester, Mass., and San Juan, Puerto Rico, each focus on testing one type of product.

The FDA approved construction of the Irvine facility in 1995, and a design was completed in 1997. Congress funded the project last year.

The FDA bought the land from UCI in late 1996 for about $3.6 million. Because the agency’s focus is testing rather than research, university scientists are not expected to work closely with their FDA counterparts, UCI spokeswoman Karen Newell Young said.