Industry News

Florida Agriculture and Consumer Services Department broke ground in mid-January 2003 on a biosafety lab that will enable the department to test for and detect potential bio-terrorist materials to protect both state residents and their food supply.

Ashland Specialty Chemical Co., a division of Covington, England-based Ashland Inc., has completed the expansion of its Kidderminster, Worcestershire, manufacturing facility. The plant can now produce specialized pressure-sensitive adhesives in addition to its metal-casting products and services operations.

Columbia St. Mary's is planning to break ground on its new Lake Drive Campus hospital facility in Spring 2004. Sited where the present St. Mary's hospital now stands, the facility is slated for occupancy in 2009. Lead architect for the project is Hellmuth Obata + Kassabaum (HOK) with Kahler Slater and Plunkett Rayisch Architects providing architectural support during construction.  

The College of Oceaneering, a commercial diving educational institution, has opened a satellite campus is San Diego that features a diving tank, a hyperbaric chamber, classrooms, and a nondestructive testing lab. The College of Oceaneering is headquartered at its home campus in Wilmington, Calif., and is owned by the National University System.

M.D. Anderson Cancer Center has topped out its new $221.9-million George and Cynthia Mitchell Basic Sciences Research Building. Slated for completion and initial occupancy in November, the 18-story, 500,000-sf facility is expected to be fully operational in June 2004. Located in Houston's Texas Medical Center, the building will house six floors of research laboratories, an auditorium, conference facilities, small-animal vivariums, and classrooms for the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston.