Industry News

Slough Estates USA is awaiting final approval to build the Britannia East Grand, a 783,533-sf biotech lab campus planned for the site of the former ICI paint factory in South San Francisco. The project, which would take the British firm’s South San Francisco holdings to more than 2.7 million sf, will go before the review board in April, and could break ground by mid-year.

Verizon New Jersey’s new customer call center is being built in Hamilton by Cranford-based real estate investment trust Mack-Cali Realty Corp. The $10.7 million, 95,000-sf facility is located in Mack-Cali’s Horizon Center Business Park. Construction on the single-story property is slated for completion in the fourth quarter of 2002. Verizon New Jersey is a division of Verizon Communications.

Sacred Heart Medical Center, part of the PeaceHealth network, has awarded the Portland office of Turner Construction Company the contract to provide pre-construction and general contracting services for a $280-million replacement hospital in Springfield, Ore. Pre-construction begins immediately and construction is scheduled for completion in 2007.

Investment firm J.W. Seligman & Co. of New York has decided to locate a new $7-million data center and customer service center in 60,000 sf of Class A office space in Portland, Maine.

The University of Texas Medical Branch is establishing a Galveston telehealth research center slated to open in late April. The SBC Foundation, part of SBC Communications, awarded the medical complex a $1-million donation. The facility is the first of its kind in the nation.