Alliant Energy Ag Innovation Lab opens at the ISU Research Park

After roughly 14 months of construction, Story Construction and its building partners completed the new Alliant Energy Ag Innovation Lab at the ISU Research Park as industry, university, government and Research Park leadership celebrated with a ribbon cutting on Dec. 5.

The facility – an 85,000 SF building with office, lab and high-bay shop space – will primarily house ISU’s Digital Ag Innovation Lab, as well as some Alliant Energy staff and a few other tenants. The Digital Ag team is a part of ISU’s Ag and Biosystems Engineering Department and focuses on developing, testing and implementing ag technology from precision and digital agriculture to data analytics and machine learning.

Story Construction’s team of in-house architects and designers worked with stakeholders from Alliant Energy, Digital Ag, the ISU Research Park and others to design the facility.

“Our partnership with the Story team has been really valuable throughout this process as we worked to find the right solutions for the Digital Ag and Alliant Energy team at the Park,” said Kyle Martin, operations manager at the ISU Research Park. “We could rely on them not only as construction experts but as helpful collaborators from the very beginning.”

Construction began in September 2023 with pouring of the facility’s north parking lot to allow for materials handling and contractor parking. Footings and foundations followed and were completed by the end of the year, allowing for erection of the pre-engineered metal building to begin shortly thereafter.

The 85,000 SF building includes 20,000 SF of individual and collaborative work stations, a 3,000 SF training wing, another 3,000 SF of commons space, and the remaining 59,000 SF for high-bay testing, fabrication and lab space.

“The design process was very collaborative and innovative,” said Andrew Tulp, senior project architect at Story Construction. “The Digital Ag team is familiar with general design development and design progression as it relates to their work, so they were fully engaged in developing a solution that met their needs.”

Story Construction crews self performed concrete foundations, pre-engineered metal building erection, doors and door hardware, and specialties on the project.

The Alliant Energy Ag Innovation Lab is the latest facility built by Story Construction at the ISU Research Park, adding to a list of recent projects such as the Park’s Economic Development Core Facility, Workiva, Boehringer Ingelheim, Pivot Bio and a current project for Strand Associates, Inc. currently being built along South Loop Drive near Pivot Bio.