Lacey plasma donation center construction starts
Work has started on a 16,700-square-foot building in Lacey that will be home to BioLife Plasma Services, a plasma donation center.
A grading permit was issued for the site at 8530 Martin Way E. in August and details are being finalized for a building permit, Lacey associate planner Samra Seymour said Tuesday. The one-story building will have 140 parking stalls, likely to accommodate those who donate plasma, she said.
BioLife Plasma, a division of an Illinois-based biopharmaceutical company called Baxalta, operates plasma centers throughout the country, but the Lacey site marks only the second location for BioLife in Washington state, according to the company website. The other site is in Bellingham.
A spokesperson for BioLife could not be reached Tuesday, but the website provides the following details about a typical facility:
▪ Number of plasma donor beds: 60-72.
▪ Number of employees: 50-70.
▪ Donations per week: 2,000.
▪ Capital investment in building, land: $7 million.
▪ Donor reimbursement: $1.5 million to $2 million per year.
More construction in Lacey likely will be well received by city officials, both in terms of jobs created and sales tax revenue. Projects such as the recently completed Lacey campus of South Puget Sound Community College and the ongoing work on a new middle school in Hawks Prairie helped cut a projected city of Lacey general fund deficit for 2016 to about $440,000 from about $800,000, according to city data.
The BioLife website also answers the following questions:
▪ What is plasma? Plasma is the yellow, liquid portion of whole blood. It makes up about 57 percent of whole blood and consists primarily of water and proteins that help the body control bleeding and infection.
▪ How is plasma donated? The process, called plasmapheresis, takes 20 to 40 minutes longer than a whole blood donation. A donor can donate as often as twice in a seven-day period, with at least one day between donations.
▪ How is plasma used? Plasma-based therapeutics are used to treat hemophilia, immune system deficiencies and for shock and burn.
This story was originally published October 13, 2015 at 3:06 PM with the headline "Lacey plasma donation center construction starts."