Industry News

DFI Group Inc., a commercial and industrial developer, is considering a site in the Charlotte, N.C., area to build an ethanol R&D center. An existing building in Monroe is under consideration. A section of the multimillion-dollar facility would be designed to produce 3 million gallons of ethanol annually. DFI Construction Inc., formed this year, supports the company’s industrial project construction needs in the Southeast.

Dow Chemical Co., based in Midland, Mich., is planning to transform a 55,000-sf facility previously occupied by Collaborative Group Ltd.’s Biotechnology Services Division into a large-molecule drugs contract manufacturing plant to serve the biotech industry. The facility will have a 50,000-liter capacity. World-wide, the capacity to produce large-molecule drugs stands at about 380,000 liters, with a critical shortage of capacity anticipated by 2005.

 The Organization of American States plans to renovate its General Secretariat building in Washington, where operations will be consolidated onto six floors and a lower level; three remaining floors will be leased. OAS selected the architectural firm Group Goetz and the engineering firm Joseph Loring Inc. to work on the project.

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Kaiser Family Foundation, based in Menlo Park, Calif., has plans to build a new nine-story, 96,000-sf public affairs office in Northwest Washington. The facility will house staff, a broadcast studio, conference space, and high-tech exhibition space. Local members of the development team include D.C.-based Concord Partners (owner's representative); Reston, Va.-based Wiles Mensch (civil engineering); and Bethesda, Md.-based Clark Construction (general contractor).

 The Institute for International Economics will soon move to a new 25,000-sf headquarters in Washington. The building was designed by New York-based Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates and built over 14 months by Sigal Construction. The developer of the project is Kaempfer. The Institute is a private, non-profit research organization.