Industry News

Atlanta-based United Parcel Service has opened three new facilities in China. The warehousing and distribution centers include a 160,000-sf facility in the Wai Gao Free Trade Zone in Shanghai, a 240,000-sf facility in a Free Trade Zone in Futian, and a 66,000-sf facility in Suzhou designed for high-tech customers.

Kao Specialties Americas has completed a $13 million expansion of its plant in High Point, N.C. Doubling Kao's manufacturing capacity, the four-story, 18,000-sf facility produces polyester resin which is made into toner for printers, copiers, and fax machines. 

The University of Cincinnati has selected Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership (ZGF) as design architect for its new 200,000-sf Social and Behavioral Sciences Center for the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences. Cincinnati architectural firm Baxter, Hodell, Donnelly, Preston (BHDP) is serving as executive architect. The new center, located on a gateway site adjacent to McMicken Commons, will provide new learning rooms, research space, and faculty/staff offices in a new "flagship" building for the College.  

Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute opened the new 8,000-sf Center for Immunobiology and Vaccine Development in Oakland, Calif., in February 2005. The $5.6 million center was designed to accelerate research into serious infectious diseases for which no vaccines are available.

Carolinas HealthCare System has initiated construction on the 190,000-sf Morehead Medical Plaza. Designed by RTKL of Chicago, the master plan calls for a state-of-the-art outpatient medical campus on a 12-acre site adjacent to Carolina Medical Center in Charlotte. The 6-story medical office building, housing specialty clinics as well as independent physician offices, will be the anchor of the new outpatient care campus. A second outpatient facility will be developed in the future across the landscaped plaza.