Industry News

Historic Normandy Farm in Blue Bell, Pa., is being transformed by Hansen Properties of Blue Bell into a conference center housing meeting space, ballrooms, banquet facilities, and dining. The $25-million project will preserve the former dairy's distinctive T-shaped barn. The conference center will open in June 2003. A 116-room hotel, previously on hold, is slated for occupancy in 2004.

O'Connor Hospital in San Jose approved a three-year strategic plan in November 2002 that will expand physician office space and enhance orthopedic and cardiovascular services. O'Connor will remodel a recently purchased a 32,000-sf building on the city's east side to house a new primary care clinic. The facility will open by year-end 2003. A new $7-million emergency department, relocated from the back of the hospital to the front, will double existing emergency facilities to house 22 beds and will include an urgent care unit.

Bayer Diagnostics, a division of Bayer Corp., has vacated seven East Bay locations to consolidate operations in a recently completed 75,000-sf Berkeley building. Located in Wareham Development's Aquatic Park where Bayer Diagnostics will continue to occupy space in two adjacent buildings, the five-story facility was built to the division's specifications.

The Smithsonian Institution recently held a topping-out celebration for the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington. The facility's structural concrete frame is now complete. Jones & Jones Architects & Landscape Architects is the design consultant for the museum.

Johnson & Wales University is planning a four-story, 145,000-sf academic center on its new Charlotte campus. Connecting the university's three colleges, the College of Culinary Arts, the College of Business, and the Hospitality College, the facility will be built by RogersDooley, a team of two local contractors.