Industry News

Saint Louis University has selected Alberici Constructors to head a team to design and build a 13,000-seat arena in Midtown. The project team includes architectural firm Mackey Mitchell Associates and Sink Combs Dethlefs, a sports architectural firm. Estimated to cost approximately $70-million, the facility will host campus, sporting, cultural, and convention events.

Cessna has contracted Wichita-based The Law Co. to build its new $60-million Citation Service Center in Wichita. Doubling the capacity of the current building, the 447,259-sf facility will house component repair and overhaul shops, multiple aircraft service bays, a customer business center, and office space. Designed by McCluggage Van Sickle & Perry of Wichita, the project is located on a 124-acre site leased to Cessna by the Wichita Airport Authority. Construction is expected to take approximately 18 months, reaching completion in the fourth quarter of 2004.

Radio equipment and cellular phone manufacturer Motorola will spend $90-million to construct a research and development operation in Beijing.

The National Atomic Museum in Albuquerque is planning a new 40,000-sf facility and exhibition area in the city’s Balloon Fiesta Park. Showcasing nuclear technology exhibits, the Smithsonian Affiliate museum will be renamed the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History when it reopens in 2006. The Department of Energy recently awarded the museum $2.5-million in initial funding towards the museum’s capital campaign of $18 million for the new facility. The museum is operated by Sandia National Laboratories and owned by the Department of Energy.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute has opened its new Bioengineering Institute in Worcester, Mass. The project is the centerpiece of the 15-acre former brownfield site called Gateway Park, slated by the city for redevelopment as a biotechnology campus. The Institute will enable early-stage technology to move from lab through development to a stage attractive to venture capitalists and investors.