Industry News

The program for Ford Motor Company's Premier Automotive Group Headquarters Facility consists of a five-story 250,000-sf office tower, 30,000-sf design center, and a four-story parking structure. The facility consolidates the North American Headquarters for Ford's five luxury automotive brands, while maintaining individual brand identity. The project, built as a "green" facility, incorporates sustainable features. The LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) 2.0 guideline was used with the following results:

Idec Pharmaceuticals is planning a five-building, 470,000-sf biotech factory in Oceanside. The $500-million complex, with a 90,000-liter biologic manufacturing capacity, will be sited on 60 acres and will be comparable in size to Disneyland.

The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) will partner with Brooks Air Force Base to create the UTSA Center for Excellence in Bioprocessing and Biotechnology. The center will provide vaccine-related research training to military and UTSA undergraduate and graduate students.

The American Institute of Mathematics (AIM) is planning a new conference center on a 190-acre site in Morgan Hill, Calif. Funded by a $5-million grant from the National Science Foundation, the AIM Research Conference Center (ARCC) will include the use of two existing buildings and renovation of another large building on the site. The architectural style for the new research center is modeled on the famous "Alhambra", the Moorish palace in Granada, Spain, renowned for its geometric proportions and mathematically intricate patterns.

American University has completed the schematic design phase of its new 260-acre campus sited 20 miles east of Cairo. The $250-million project was designed by Sasaki/CDC, a joint venture of Watertown-based Sasaki Associates and Cairo-based Abdelhalim-CDC (Community Design Collaborative).