Industry News

Geomet Technologies has opened a 6,000-sf facility in Gaithersburg, Md., comprised of administrative space, three laboratories, and cold storage facilities. The facility will enable Geomet, a subsidiary of the Springfield-based homeland defense company Versar, to perform biological detection services testing. Operating as a biological safety level two (BSL-2) lab as certified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the labs can perform R&D on dangerous biological organisms including dead anthrax strains.

Sibley Memorial Hospital, a 340-bed, full-service hospital in Northwest D.C., is planning a new $10-million cancer center expected to open in fall of this year. Significantly increasing radiation therapy treatment capacity, the new single story 14,000-sf addition will be funded by $40 million in tax-exempt revenue bonds. The bonds will also help pay for the 8.5-acre site adjacent to the hospital purchased from the Army Corps of Engineers on which part of the cancer center will be located.

Seminole Community College plans to build a three-story, 90,000-sf high-tech training facility on a $1.5-million, 6.1-acre site donated to the college by the Pizzuti Cos. Located in the Heathrow International Business Center, the facility will present curriculum designed to meet the needs of the high-tech employers for which the area has become a magnet. Construction is expected to begin in the next 12 months.

As proposed by the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, Convergys is considering a 1 million-sf "urban campus" headquarters on two blocks of The Banks riverfront development. Most of the planned office space would be located on top of an existing garage. Convergys has been seeking a location for its new headquarters since last summer.

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine has contracted the D.C. office of URS as technical consultant for a new cancer research building. The original cancer research building was also designed by URS, an architectural and engineering services firm.