Industry News

Madern USA, subsidiary of the Dutch rotary tool maker Madern, will build a 25,000-sf to 30,000-sf facility on six acres purchased in Apex, N.C.'s Pinnacle Park. The facility will house an expanded production line and enable the company to double its workforce over the next few years. As the Dutch company's sole plant outside the Netherlands, Madern USA is currently housed in 7,000 sf of leased space in Pinnacle Park. 

Santa Fe Springs-based furniture distributor Coaster Co. of America has signed a $6-million lease contract for 269,000-sf of warehouse space in Newark. Coaster, needing additional distribution and dock space as well as proximity to the Port of Oakland, will vacate its 125,000-sf San Leandro, Calif., facility by year-end. 

Biotechnology firm Investigen is building a 27,000-sf facility in Hercules' North Shore Business Park. Investigen will occupy 7,000 sf of the new building, with the city of Hercules considering the creation of a biotech incubator on the facility's 13,500-sf top floor.

CNA Insurance will relocate its 255 employees, currently housed in a total of 100,000-sf of offices in San Bruno and San Francisco, to 55,000 sf on the sixth floor of the 482,000-sf Foundry Square II. The move is expected to occur in February of 2003.

Bio-Rad Laboratories recently broke ground on a 140,000-sf, $20-million facility on its 70-acre campus in the North Shore Business Park in Hercules. Slated for occupancy in fall of 2003, the facility will house R&D, office, and manufacturing space to support Bio-Rad's planned workforce and product line expansion, such as microarray technologies and newborn screening tests. The building will also support growth in the areas of proteomics and functional genomics.