Area residents are invited to tour Colorado State University’s new BioEnvironmental Hazards Research Building March 17.

The building, which is completed but will not be operational during the tour, is a state-of-the-art facility on the university’s Foothills Campus. It will contain research currently being conducted at Colorado State in response to the worldwide resurgence in diseases such as tuberculosis and mosquito-borne viruses.

The Biosafety Level 3 building exceeds criteria set forth by the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control. It is one of a half-dozen Biosafety Level 3 research units in Fort Collins, which has become a center for work on bacteria such as tuberculosis and plague and viruses such as dengue fever. The 12,000-square-foot building houses a 9,000-square-foot “envelope” that is impervious to bacteria and viruses. Air entering and exiting the envelope, which houses two lab suites for TB and one for virology, is HEPA-filtered to remove all bacteria and viruses before the air is exhauste. The open house will run from 2-8 p.m. The 45-minute tours will be conducted by Colorado State staff for groups of 8-10 visitors.

To reach the research facility, take Overland Trail Road to Rampart Road (north of Colorado State’s Equine Center and south of the Overland Trail-LaPorte intersection). Follow Rampart Road left past College Lake and to the new building, which is located behind (east of) the Environmental Toxicology and Technology Center