Industry News

Jackson South Community Hospital broke ground in August of 2008 on a $102 million expansion of its Miami facility. Doubling the size of the current hospital, the project will accommodate a total of 199 beds when it opens in late 2011. A three-story, 157,000-sf building will be constructed adjacent to the existing facility, of which 72,000-sf will be renovated. The completed project will feature an expanded emergency department, 57 new private patient rooms, 12 additional critical care beds, surgery, new CT/MRI scanners, oncology, and a cardiac catheterization lab.

Laboratory Corporation (LabCorp) is partnering with Duke University’s Translational Medicine Institute to build a 40,000-sf biorepository at the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis. Construction began in summer of 2008 and will reach completion by spring of 2009. Housing laboratories, offices, computer rooms, and freezers, the laboratory will have the capacity to store up to 10 million specimens and patient samples for researchers in the academic, healthcare, biomedical, and pharmaceutical sectors.

DuPont is expanding the range of DuPont™ SentryGlas® interlayers to meet a broader range of needs for protective windows, doors, and safety-glazed building elements. The newest SentryGlas® is available in thinner sheets that provide protection while replacing thicker traditional interlayers. The new offerings broaden architects' and builders' choices for incorporating impact-resistant glass for more protective buildings. And engineers can design stronger, more durable, more protective building elements such as skylights, rails, stairs, doors or storefronts.

St. Francis Health Services opened the 350,000-sf St. Francis Medical Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Aug. 16, 2008. The full service hospital includes a critical care unit, emergency room, women’s health, birthing center, neonatal ICU, and a Flight for Life hangar. The 156-bed facility has a Level 4 trauma designation and can expand from four to twelve critical care beds as needed.

Buck Institute for Age Research opened its stem cell training lab in Novato, Calif., in August of 2008. The 5,400-sf laboratory was supported by funding from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) and will provide instruction for graduate students and researchers on the culturing of embryonic stem cells. The facility is located in an 185,000-sf research building that includes a vivarium for small rodents sited beneath the training lab.