Industry News

Atlanta-based Kinetic Biosystems Inc. (KBI) will site its planned $40-million contract biomanufacturing facility in an existing building in north Durham's Teer Technical Park, a five-building campus previously occupied by Mitsubishi Semiconductor America. The facility is expected to open in late 2004 or early 2005. KBI was previously housed in an incubator associated with Georgia Institute of Technology where it focused on developing bioreactor technology.

Singapore-based Flextronics International is engaged in a $20-million, 560,000-sf expansion of its Youngsville, N.C., manufacturing facility. One of two U.S. technology campuses, the facility will house design, engineering, testing, and manufacturing operations for optical communications products. The project will enable Flextronics to add approximately 1,500 additional jobs.  

Certek, a Raleigh, N.C., builder of modular biodefense research laboratories, was awarded a $2.1 million contract to construct a biodefense lab for the Pentagon. The lab will be manufactured in Durham, N.C., and transported to Washington D.C. for use by military services.

The Smithsonian Institution will open the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport in December 2003. Contractor Hensel Phelps Construction of Greeley, Colo., began building the $309-million, 760,000-sf facility in June 2001. The facility will house 80% of the National Air and Space Museum collection not displayed at the National Mall location.

The United Parcel Service has completed the $44-million expansion of its Ontario, Calif., international air hub. The 176,000-sf addition expands the size of the hub to 676,000 sf. The hub's sorting capacity will increase by 53% to 107,000 packages per hour, creating 200 additional permanent jobs. UPS currently has 4,000 employees at the Ontario facility, which supports export operations between the United States and the Asia-Pacific region.