Industry News

Aldrich Chemical Co. is consolidating three citywide locations with a move to an 800,000-sf plant in Milwaukee. Slated to begin in fall and continue through June 2005, the relocation was prompted by a need to make room for the reconstruction of the Marquette interchange where Aldrich’s main site was located. The sale of the site will fund the $65-million expansion and renovation of the new plant. Aldrich Chemical is a subsidiary of Sigma-Aldrich Corp. of St. Louis, a producer of biochemical and organic chemical products.

Memorial Hermann Health Care System is planning to construct a new $93-million replacement hospital in the Sugar Land area of Fort Bend County, Texas. Tripling the footprint of the current Missouri City facility, the project will add ten inpatient beds for a total of 75 private rooms. Renamed the Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Hospital, the facility will be accompanied by a professional office building; both will open in 2006.

Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center broke ground on a new $9-million expansion project in Houston on May 11, 2004. Adding a 12-bed intensive care unit in a newly constructed 27,000-sf, two-story building, the facility will have the capacity for 24 additional medical/surgical beds on the second floor. Upon completion, Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center will have approximately 180 licensed beds and 22 ICU beds; the existing ten-bed ICU will remain operational. Over 300 parking spaces will be added.

A new Oklahoma City Federal Building was dedicated on May 3, 2004. Adjacent to the site where the Murrah building once stood, the facility’s security features include a steel-plated main entrance, shatterproof glass, and bollards, which are concrete plugs preventing vehicles from getting too close. The $33-million horseshoe-shaped building began construction in October 2001, with federal agencies beginning occupancy in December 2003.

Wake Forest University’s Babcock Graduate School of Management is planning to open a 30,000-sf campus in Charlotte. The project will be sited in a new development owned by Wachovia Corp. and will include a 1,200-seat performing arts center.