Industry News

Turbotec, a manufacturer of high performance heat exchangers, will expand its campus in Hickory, N.C., with the construction of a 20,000-sf production facility. The project will employ an additional 25 workers when operations commence in January of 2009. Turbotec will implement Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma strategies for production management in the new facility.

Pfizer is investing $3 million to expand its Animal Genetics unit in Kalamazoo, Mich. Twenty employees will be relocated to Building 300 from a site in Louisiana that will be closed. The new Animal Genetics unit will open in March of 2009. The project is part of Pfizer’s $50 million consolidation of its Veterinary Medicine Research and Development operations to the Kalamazoo campus. Researchers will be transferred from sites in Richland Township, Pa., and Sandwich, U.K.

The University of California, Davis is planning to construct the second phase of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science. The $16.5 million, 32,000-sf project will feature a teaching and research winery, a food science laboratory, and a brewery. Construction will begin in June of 2009 with completion slated for July of 2010.

Parkview Regional Medical Center broke ground in September of 2008 on a $536 million expansion of its hospital campus in Fort Wayne, Ind. The completed 900,000-sf facility will provide over 400 beds in private rooms, a new heart center, and specialty centers for neurosciences, orthopaedics, and cancer. The project will also house a full-service emergency department, surgery, critical care, physician offices, and conference space. Construction is slated for completion in December of 2011.

Summa Health System opened the $28 million Jean B. and Milton N. Cooper Cancer Center on its Akron City Hospital campus in September of 2008. The three-story building provides comprehensive outpatient cancer services in a single location and houses advanced diagnostics, treatment, support, and research. The 60,000-sf integrated facility includes 28 infusion treatment areas, three radiation oncology treatment areas, an ambulance entrance, and access to psychologists and physical therapists.