Industry News

The Historical Society of Washington, D.C. has completed the $24-million renovation of the 101-year-old Carnegie Library building to create the City Museum. The facility opened as a 60,000-sf museum on May 15, 2003. The renovation project included a 150-seat theater, extra museum space and offices for the historical society, as well as updated HVAC, wiring, and adaptations for technology. The City Museum now accommodates 12,000 sf of exhibit galleries, an archeology lab, an education center, a public research library, a café, and a museum store.

The University of California Berkeley has selected a development team led by Allen & O’Hara of Memphis to develop the 135-million, 26-acre University Village project in Albany. The project includes 30 units of housing for junior faculty and 587 units of rental housing for 1,034 graduate students.

Florida photomask maker Photronics will open a new $300-million fabrication center in Shanghai, China. The company also occupies facilities in Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.

New York Life Insurance Co. will locate its new $140-million Forsyth County data center in The Meadows 300, a 95,000-sf BellSouth Entertainment unit facility. Slated to begin operations by year-end 2003, the data center will store and handle customer files.

Wyeth Vaccines is planning to lease approximately 82,000 sf of flex space in the Keystone Office and Industrial Park in Durham, N.C. The research laboratory is expected to open in 2003 and will house up to 100 researchers. Wyeth is continuing to develop its 472,000-sf Sanford campus, where it completed a 115,000-sf manufacturing expansion in December 2002. A 50,000-sf addition to the expansion is currently under way. Wyeth Vaccines is a business unit of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, a division of Madison, N.J.-based Wyeth.