Industry News

SouthTrust is building its 72,000-sf Atlanta Data Center in Marietta, Ga., where check- and data-processing for the company's Georgia, Virginia, and North and South Carolina markets will be housed. SouthTrust, based in Birmingham, Ala., with operations throughout the Southeast, will relocate 300 workers to the center from their current Fulton County, Ga. offices. The facility is slated for completion in June of 2002.

San Diego State University opened a new $31 million lab and research facility in January 2002. Featuring "smart classroom" technology for multimedia visual presentations, the building houses 57 state-of-the-art chemistry and geology labs and 700 workstations.

The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) broke ground in January 2002 on its 33,000-sf Durango Building addition. Slated for completion in March of 2003, the $7 million additon will house UTSA's Institute for Economic Development.

Toyota is planning to build a plant in Tijuana to manufacture its Tacoma pickup truck beds. Located on 700 acres in eastern Tijuana, the plant will produce 160,000 truck beds annually. Construction is slated to begin in spring of 2002 with production to begin at the plant in 2004.   

Plans to construct a second insulin manufacturing plant in Clayton have been put on hold by Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals' Danish parent company due to research delays. The plant would manufacture insulin in the form of an inhalant, the clinical trials of which have been delayed. Novo Nordisk's existing insulin manufacturing plant occupies 50 of 260 acres owned by the pharmaceutical firm in Clayton; the new plant would be constructed adjacent to it.