Port St. Lucie’s next biotech institute is one step closer to reality.

Oregon Health & Science University’s Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute signed a deal this month to design and build its new $30 million laboratory in the Tradition development west of Interstate 95.

The institute tapped Baltimore-based Whiting Turner Contracting Co. to oversee construction of the 105,000 square feet of laboratories and offices. The building is on target to be completed in May 2011, said Andrew Favata, vice president for Tradition’s developer, Core Communities LLC.

VGTI Florida, as the local campus has been dubbed, will be built on eight acres at Core Communities’ Florida Center for Innovation at Tradition, a fledgling research park that’s now home to another biotech outfit, the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies. (more…)