Industry News

Abbot Labs, based in Illinois, is proposing to build a West Coast R&D headquarters at the former 35-acre Cargill Salt site in Redwood City. The site is adjacent to Perclose, the medical device manufacturer recently purchased by Abbott. Phase I of the one-million-sf project would accommodate approximately 500 employees in 250,000 sf of lab and office space, where the pharmaceutical and diagnostic company will expand its cardiac product line. By the end of 2002, Abbott anticipates completion of the planning, design, and review of the project.

Montgomery College’s new $25-million, 7,186-sf Health Sciences Building, slated to begin construction in April 2002, will include a primary care clinic that offers charity medical care to the needy local community. The clinic, scheduled to open in early 2004, will be operated by Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Md. Clinical instruction will be provided by hospital medical practitioners working directly with Montgomery’s nursing students.

Chiron Corp. is seeking approval from the city of Emeryville to begin construction in summer 2002 on a new 365,000-sf lab and office complex at its Emeryville headquarters.  The new facility would expand Chiron’s manufacturing space for drugs awaiting approval. If approved, the expansion could take up to two years to complete.  Construction of a 1,000-space parking structure for the new building is already nearing completion.

The World Bank, whose 8,000 employees are housed at its headquarters in downtown Washington, is planning to relocate its back-up office and computer operations outside the District following the events of September 11. The 200,000-sf Presidents Park office facility in Herndon is under consideration. Formerly occupied by Winstar, the structure could accommodate computers and personnel in an emergency, as well as provide technical data center equipment.

Cisco Systems’ planned 10-building, 1.5-million-sf office campus in Boxborough may be enlarged by half again as much if approvals from state and town agencies are granted. An additional 500,000 sf in three buildings would be added to the Boxborough site, where three structures are half built, and four more have already been approved. The San  Jose, Calif.-based company hopes to consolidate several of its Massachusetts facilities at the Boxborough site. Move-in is anticipated in mid-2003 at the earliest.