Industry News

Plexus Corp. has purchased a 164,000-sf factory in Penang, Malaysia as part of a $12 million project to expand its operations there. The plant will nearly double Plexus’s current Asian manufacturing capacity, which it expects to outgrow by early fiscal 2005. Plexus, based in Neenah, Wisc., is a contract manufacturer of electronics.

H&R Block is planning to construct a new 500,000-sf, $120 million headquarters in downtown Kansas City. The office tower, anticipated to become the centerpiece of the city’s envisioned entertainment district, houses a mix of restaurants and retail stores on the first floor, a separate three-story office building with a 250-seat auditorium, and an underground seven-level parking garage with 1,250 spaces. Construction is expected to begin later in 2004 with occupancy slated for summer of 2006.

The University of Colorado Health Sciences Center has selected California-based Shea Properties to redevelop its 30-acre 9th Avenue campus in Aurora, Colo. The campus, housing the 350-bed University Hospital, the Graduate School of Medicine, and the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry, and Pharmacy, accommodates over 60 clinical treatment and research programs. Plans for the site describe a large mixed-use development including office, retail, residential, and parking.

Mayo Clinic Hospitals broke ground in April 2004 on a 162,000-sf outpatient clinic on its campus in Northeast Phoenix. Slated for completion in late 2005, the facility will house radiation, oncology, and transplant services.

Hospital Clermont Ferrand University has awarded a subsidiary of Pasadena, Calif.-based Jacobs Engineering Group the three-year, $117-million contract for a renovation and relocation project in Clermont-Ferrand, France. Working with France’s Architect Group 6, the project is the sixth on which the two companies have collaborated. A maternity facility will be integrated into the hospital’s general surgery complex as part of the project scope.