Industry News

Construction services for the first phase of the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C. will be provided by Centex Construction’s mid-Atlantic division. The center, located underground on the East Front of the Capitol, will require a 196,000-sf excavation and will house 580,000 sf on three levels upon completion in 2005. Centex’s contract is scheduled to be fulfilled by early 2004.  

Avalon Pharmaceuticals, a genomics-based research company, has relocated its headquarters to a 55,000-sf facility in Germantown, Md., featuring expanded research and development capabilities. The headquarters, sited in the Seneca Meadows Corporate Center, should be operational in the first quarter of 2003.

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Program is planning to consolidate operations with the construction of a new 65,000-sf headquarters on North Carolina State University's Centennial Campus. The $13.5-million facility will include an outdoor learning laboratory and is expected to begin construction in the fourth quarter of 2002.

Applied Biosystems Group of Foster City, Calif., began construction in January on its R&D, office, and manufacturing project sited on 80 acres in Pleasanton. Totalling just under 1,000,000-sf, the planned seven-building complex will be developed on an as-needed basis. Applied Biosystems will invest $80-million this fiscal year in the first two buildings. The first, a two-story, 90,000-sf facility slated for completion in the spring, will be followed by a three-story, 140,000-sf building to reach completion in fall 2003.

Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI), the research arm of Oakland's Children's Hospital, has opened the Nutrition Genomics Center. The research center was funded by an $8-million gift to renovate and equip 14,000 sf of office space.