Industry News

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.

Toronto-based ManuLife Financial Corp. will build a new 470,000-sf "green" headquarters in South Boston. The 14-story building will be one of the first buildings in the nation utilizing a double-skin exterior curtainwall facade.

The California Academy of Sciences is planning a state-of-the-art "green" museum and research center in San Francisco. The center will consolidate and replace Golden Gate Park facilities including the Morrison Planetarium, the Steinhart Aquarium, and other laboratories and exhibition halls. The Academy, the oldest natural history museum on the west coast, will close in 2004 and reopen in the new complex in 2008. Currently housed in 340,000 sf,  the academy will expand to 370,000 sf and will add a multilevel rainforest exhibit.