Industry News

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is planning a renovation and expansion of the Jonsson-Rowland Science Center in Troy, N.Y.  The project aims to reduce existing deferred maintenance costs on the facility, constructed in 1961, by $20 million. An addition called the New Center for Science will connect via a glass atrium to the existing science center and will add 100,000-sf to 120,000-sf of wet laboratories for biology and physics teaching and research. Renovations to the existing facility will create dry labs, classrooms, offices, and conference rooms.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore received $62 million from the state of Maryland in April of 2008 to construct an addition to the School of Pharmacy. The seven-story facility will house four floors of clinical and translational research in pharmacogenetics, nanomedicine, and drug discovery. Featuring technology-rich lecture halls and a patient interaction laboratory, the 92,635-sf project will connect to the existing Pharmacy Hall via a glass pavilion.

Johns Hopkins University opened the John G. Rangos Sr. Life Sciences Building in East Baltimore, Md., on April 11, 2008. The University will occupy 100,000-sf of lab and office space in the 278,000-sf facility. The $60 million, seven-story building will provide interdisciplinary research space for the Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences in the areas of epigenetics, sensory biology, cell dynamics, and metabolism and obesity research.

Purdue University broke ground on the $14.5 million Purdue Technology Center II on April 7, 2008. The 105,000-sf project will support 26 companies and represents a 13-acre expansion of the 725-acre Purdue Research Park in West Lafayette, Ind. Additionally, Purdue is planning to construct the Paul W. Ogle Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering Laboratories at the Purdue University College of Technology in New Albany. The laboratories, which will include equipment such as a rapid prototyping machine, are expected to open in fall 2008.

Genzyme announced a €130 million investment in the expansion of its Waterford, Ireland, campus in April of 2008. The project will add 5,600-sm to the existing 6,800-sm facility to support sterile fill/finish manufacturing, softgel manufacturing, administration, and laboratories for quality control, microbiology, chemistry, and stability. Construction will begin in summer of 2008 with completion slated for late 2009. Following commissioning and validation, the expanded facility will begin production in mid-2011.