Industry News

Baylor Health Care System will break ground on June 7, 2005 on the Texas Heart Hospital on Baylor's Plano campus. The $106-million, 180,000-sf facility will accommodate inpatient and outpatient care, heart surgery, cardiac catheterizations, vascular surgery, non-invasive cardiovascular testing, and 24-hour emergency care. The four-story, 68-bed facility, a partnership between Baylor and 86 cardiovascular physicians and surgeons, is expected to open in January 2007.

Pacific University will construct its 225,000-sf Health Professions campus on a half-acre site in Hillsboro, Ore. Slated to break ground on July 26, 2005, the school will be constructed in two phases over the next five years. The first 100,000-sf, $30-million phase is expected to open in fall 2006 and will house instructional spaces, a multidisciplinary clinic, dental science and pharmacy programs, student support, and space for the School of Professional Psychology.

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base has received $72 million from the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee for facility development. Infrastructure improvements enabling the transition from the C-141 planes to the larger C-5 will receive $39.15 million. The construction of a 500-seat auditorium, part of a larger expansion of the National Air and Space Intelligence Center at the base, will be funded with $19.67 million. A new $13-million academic facility will house laboratories and classrooms for the Air Force Institute of Technology.

Schering-Plough Corp. is consolidating biopharma research operations in Palo Alto, Calif. Subsidiary Canji Inc. will be relocated to merge with Schering-Plough's DNAX Research Institute to create an integrated company called Schering-Plough Biopharma. The 68,000-sf facility, where DNAX is located, will be fully operational by the third quarter of 2005. Schering-Plough Biopharma will focus primarily on biologics research including monoclonal antibodies and therapeutic proteins.

The $150-million New Songdo National Aquarium will be constructed at the edge of New Songdo City's Central Park in South Korea. Described as the most modern aquarium in the world, the 200,000-sf facility will be designed with state-of-the-art "aquatecture" by Boston-based Chermayeff, Sollogub & Poole (CSP). Project manager International Design for the Environment Associates (IDEA), also of Boston, is a firm of international aquarium experts associated with CSP.