Industry News

St. Luke's Hospital, an affiliate of Sutter Health System, is constructing a $6.4-million heart center featuring a cardiac catheterization lab. The center, which will also house equipment for non-invasive diagnostic procedures such as echocardiograms and stress tests, is expected to open in spring of 2003.

Better Choice Packaging, a packaging and display company serving companies including Hershey, Arm & Hammer, and Bath & Body Works, will relocate operations from a 26,000-sf Camden facility to a newly purchased 50,300-sf, $640,000 facility sited on four acres in Camden, N.J.

The San Jose City Council has approved the creation of a $6.5-million bioscience incubator in the city's Edenvale development. Housing wet labs, offices, common space, and support for up to fifteen bioscience startups, the 33,750-sf facility is expected to open in spring of 2004.

Construction will begin in March 2003 on the first building of Trammel Crow's planned $300-million Patriot Plaza in Washington, D.C. The first phase, designed to accommodate a government or private tenant, consists of a 280,000-sf office facility pre-engineered to meet stringent security regulations, including the framework to accommodate blast-proof windows, 30-foot setbacks from the curb, a hardened shell, and progressive collapse avoidance.

Construction has begun on the International Monetary Fund's new Washington headquarters.  The 650,000-sf facility, designed by New York-based Pei Cobb Freed & Partners and associate architect Weihe Design Group, includes a 450-seat meeting room, a restaurant, and three levels of underground parking.  Developer for the project is CarrAmerica Realty, and the general contractor is Clark Construction Group.