Industry News

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.

Design of Xaverian Brothers High School's new library and IT center was recently completed by Flansburgh Associates Inc. of Boston. Located on the high school's Westwood campus, the two-story, 17,000-sf expansion is connected by a double-height lobby to the existing 1960's school building.  The expansion is the centerpiece of a $10-million campus-wide plan that includes updated classrooms and science labs, renovated and expanded athletic facilities and a new administrative suite.

South Texas Medical Center has planned $136 million in capital projects for the current year, with projects totalling $165 million planned for the next five years. Ground was broken on the Children's Cancer Research Center, a $50-million facility providing space for up to 18 principal researchers and their staff. The Children's Cancer Center is part of a $67-million development at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, which will also include an academic administration and student services facility.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NOAA/NESDIS) satellite operations center is being designed by a joint venture between Morphosis and Einhorn Yafee Prescott. The $61-million, 208,271-sf project will incorporate environmental standards to meet the U.S. Green Building Council’s Silver level in the LEED Green Building Rating System.

Ludwigshafen, Germany-based BASF plans to expand its Research Triangle Park administration and production facilities by 90,000 sf and renovate 20,000 sf of laboratory space. The German chemical firm is investing $22 million in the project, which will add approximately 100 jobs. BASF currently has 420 employees in 132,000 sf in RTP. By year-end, relocation of employees from a closing crop protection research center in Princeton, N.J., could increase BASF's Triangle workforce to 520.