Industry News

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.  

The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University is in the process of raising $80 million for capital projects. A gift of $500,000 has been contributed by Cisco Systems to create Fuqua's Center for Innovation and Educational Technologies.

Medline Industries, a Mundelein, Ill.-based medical equipment manufacturer and distributor, is negotiating to move into the 323,000-sf Center Point 1 warehouse in Research Triangle Park. Built in 2000 by Panattoni Development, the empty building would increase the company's local operations by over five-fold. Medline currently occupies 60,000 sf in Durham's Research Tri Center office park.

Episcopal Hospital has been transformed by Temple University Health System into a 114-bed psychiatric-care facility. In the next 12 to 15 months the hospital's emergency department will be expanded and the waiting and registration areas remodeled. The hospital's last 24-bed unit will open in September or October of 2002. The $9-million behavioral health renovation is part of Temple's $43-million system overhaul plan announced in 2000.