Industry News

The Alameda County General Services Agency has signed a 30-year lease for the planned Thomas L. Berkeley Square development in Oakland. The 101,000-sf facility will serve as the Social Services Agency's administrative headquarters and will consolidate divisions currently dispersed across Oakland. The North Alameda County Self Sufficiency Center, a welfare job training program, will also be housed in the building.

Basler Electric Co., a Highland, Ill.-based electronic components manufacturer, will open an 18,000-sf plant in Taylor, Texas, to produce custom transformers, generator controls, and relay systems for the industrial, commercial, and electric utility markets. Basler will invest $3-million to upgrade a facility that will employ a minimum of 50 workers. The plant, Basler's seventh manufacturing plant in Taylor, is expected to reach completion in April 2003.

Frase Enterprises is relocating to 82,000 sf of warehouse and distribution space in Hayward's Davis Court Industrial Center. The electrical hardware company was previously based in San Francisco. The facility will provide space for manufacturing, offices and storage. The 142,322-sf Davis Court complex is sited on six acres.

PPD, a Wilmington-based pharmaceutical and biotech discovery and development firm, has leased an additional 25,000-sf in Morrisville. PPD currently occupies four buildings totaling 283,000-sf at its expanding Triangle campus.

The state of Texas has selected Cadence McShane Corporation of Austin to construct Texas A&M University's new 52,000-sf Performing Arts Center in Corpus Christi. The 1,500-seat, three-level concert hall will feature a 50-foot glass wall facing Corpus Christi Bay and is slated for completion in summer of 2004.