Industry News

Kaiser Permanente opened its new $20-million emergency department and decontamination unit in Walnut Creek in mid-November, 2004. Tripling the size of the existing ER, the expansion increased the number of emergency rooms from 31 to 52, with a cardiac monitor and computer in each room. The 32,000-sf facility includes a small lab station for blood or urine samples which channels the samples through a tube at sixty miles per hour to a lab in the medical center within two seconds. The permanent mass decontamination unit includes eight decontamination showers.

Fairfax, Va.-based federal contractor Anteon International is relocating its 400-employee systems engineering group from Crystal City to 50,000-sf in the new Federal Gateway Building in Washington, D.C. Anteon will occupy four of the building’s six floors.

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has dedicated its new South Tower. The 10-story facility is part of an ongoing $650 million West Philadelphia campus expansion project and will increase the hospital’s bed count from 430 to 381. The cardiac center and cardiac intensive-care unit will expand in the new tower, which will also accommodate oncology, emergency medicine, newborn intensive care, and pediatric intensive care and endocrinology.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is constructing the $62.5 million Global Communications Center in Atlanta. The 200,000-sf building broke ground in December 2002 and is slated for completion in early 2005. The facility will accommodate technology-equipped classrooms, a learning resource center, a public health library, broadcasting production studios, auditoriums, and a public health museum. Designed by Thompson Ventulett Stainback & Associates, the building incorporates security measures while remaining accessible to the public.

The Oakland Airport is engaged in a $1-billion expansion project. Turner Construction has been awarded a $250 million contract for the first phase of construction, which includes a 300,000-sf extension of Terminal 2, an 80,000-sf customer service building, and a seven-level parking garage for 6,000 cars. Ground will be broken on the first phase in February 2004 with completion expected in mid-2006.