Industry News

Chula Vista's Southwestern College is developing the $22-million Education Village with San Diego State University where the schools will share classroom space. In Otay Mesa, Southwestern and Sweetwater Union High School are planning Project Synergy, a $123-million, 305,900-sf classroom and office facility. The first phase of construction is slated to start in September 2003 and reach completion in early summer of 2005. A new Sweetwater district high school will open adjacent to the facility the following autumn.

Knapp Medical Center in Weslaco recently broke ground on a 25,000-sf emergency department addition and renovation project. As builder McCarthy constructs the new ER addition, renovation of the existing adjacent facilities will also be completed. A new medical center entrance will integrate the new and renovated areas of the facility. Completion of the $5.7-million project, designed by architect PageSoutherlandPage, is expected in October 2003.

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.

Impax, a pharmaceutical company engaged in reformulating generic versions of popular drugs, has opened a new 85,000-sf research and manufacturing facility in Hayward where the company is based. Impax will increase its employee base from 85 to 190 by the end of 2002.

Construction of Sysco's $53-million, 800,000-sf food-service redistribution center in Warren County, Va., is slated to begin in September with completion expected in late 2003.