Industry News

Hitachi Transport System Ltd,, a subsidiary of consumer electronics maker Hitachi, has selected global facilities and services provider ProLogis of Denver to construct a 569,000-sf distribution center in Osaka, Japan. The five story facility, dubbed the ProLogis Parc Maishima II, is slated for completion in the second half of 2006.

Johns Hopkins will begin construction in 2006 on a $275.5-million children's tower in Baltimore, Md. Part of a new clinical facility, the 12-story, 205-bed tower will house a pediatric trauma center, ten operating rooms, psychiatry, and outpatient cancer care. Funding for the facility will come in part from a $100-million donation recently received by Johns Hopkins. Slated for completion in summer of 2009, the project is currently eight months behind schedule and $190-million over budget due to high construction material costs.

The University of California, Davis (U.C. Davis) dedicated the $20-million Center for Biophotonics Science and Technology on January 30, 2006. Located in the Oak Park Research Building in Sacramento, Calif., the 40,000-sf facility will accommodate 100 researchers from U.C. Davis and other partner institutions including U.C. Berkeley, U.C. San Francisco, Stanford University, Mills College, and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.

Construction of the National Interagency Biodefense Campus (NIBC) is underway at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland. A collaboration of the U.S. Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services, the 200-acre site will be developed over the next six years. Construction of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Integrated Research Facility began in summer of 2005 and is slated for completion in December 2007.

Novartis broke ground in July 2005 on a $116-million expansion of its East Hanover, N.J., headquarters campus. Two 144,000-sf facilities will be constructed, the first reaching completion in October of 2006, the second in May of 2007.