Industry News

Cellular medicine company ViaCell will relocate its headquarters to 43,000 sf of lab and office space at Cambridge Science Center in Massachusetts. The facility, previously known as Riverview I, is being converted by Equity Office to accommodate 130,000 sf of laboratory space. An 18-story tower, previously named Riverview II, houses 148,000 sf of office space. ViaCell’s footprint of 25,000-sf of lab space and 18,000-sf of office space in the adjoining tower is connected by a common lobby.

North Carolina Sate University is planning a 91,000-sf biomanufacturing test facility that will simulate a good-manufacturing-practices environment at its Raleigh campus. The $36-million facility, funded by a Golden Leaf grant, will provide workforce training for the biomanufacturing industry.

Plastics molding company Aimet Technologies will relocate from 26,600 sf in Raleigh to a new 70,400-sf facility in Zebulon, N.C. in fall of 2004. Sited on six acres in Legacy Park, the building is located near the Eastern North Carolina Plastics Technology Center which provides employee training for the plastics industry.

Pennsylvania Hospital has built a 22,000-sf expansion in Philadelphia on top of an existing building on the historic campus with no disruption to patient care. The 45-bed Peas Critical Care Complex includes self-contained private patient rooms, an oversized patient transport elevator, consultation rooms for physicians and families, state-of-the-are monitoring systems, secure access, and a custom-designed toilet facility in each patient room. Education and teaching areas for staff were also constructed.

Ground will be broken in summer of 2004 on the Blackfan Research Center in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston. Creating 575,000 sf of life sciences research space, the 18-floor building will be sited on three acres adjacent to a Merck facility, Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School. Developed by Lyme Properties LLC, the $250-million project will accommodate medical institutions and life science companies. The project contractor is William A. Berry & Son of Denver. Lyme Properties is also developing a 440,000-sf medical research center called Longwood North.