Industry News

Endeavor Real Estate Group LLC is developing IBM's original Northwest Austin research site into The Domain, a 234-acre campus totalling over 2,000,000 sf. Purchased in December of 1999, plans for the campus included a conglomerate of office and retail facilities, manufacturing and distribution space, and possibly multi-family residential development. Located in an Austin high tech corridor, features such as high speed Internet access, telecommunication, enhanced utilities and redundant power make The Domain attractive to tenants.

The University of Colorado at Boulder (UC-B) has selected VFA, a provider of Web-based facilities and capital asset management solutions and software, to perform a detailed facility condition assessment, provide in-the-field training on VFA's assessment methodology, and deliver VFA.facility, the central Web-based platform of VFA's capital planning and management solutions (CPMS) tools.

On April 11th, biotech firm Applied Biosystems broke ground on a new 80-acre campus in Pleasanton designed by MBT Architecture.

The Lower Colorado River Authority is planning to upgrade the 30-year-old Dalchau Service Center. Located in Southeast Austin, the transmission services center currently houses 180 to 240 employees who maintain and build power transmission lines. The $43-million expansion project will remodel the center to accommodate current and future growth. Four separate facilities will be upgraded and converted into a single 260-desk facility, housing additional offices and a conference center.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) plans to select a development manager in May for its planned $111-million Virginia Square expansion. More than 1,000 employees will be relocated from leased space in the District of Columbia to the 370,000-sf campus at Virginia Square, which will be expanded to 422,000 sf to accommodate them. It is anticipated that RFPs for the design of the facility and its interior will be released soon. FDIC expects construction to be completed in 2006.