Industry News

Verizon has awarded a program management contract to Syska Hennessy Group to design and build a fuel cell facility as the primary electrical power source at their 332,000-sf Garden City call-routing center. Pending permit approvals, Verizon plans to start installation of seven fuel cells manufactured by UTC Fuel Cells, a unit of United Technologies Corp. The system  is expected to be fully operational in 2004 and will operate in parallel with four new natural-gas powered engine generators, totaling more than 4 megawatts of generating capacity.

Discovery Laboratories Inc. has leased a 10,000-sf research laboratory facility in Redwood City, Calif. Based in Doylestown, Penn., the biopharmaceutical company plans to use the facility to develop its synthetic aerosol version of human lung surfactants.

The Robert F. Lucey Center for Technology and Training's dedication ceremony was recently celebrated at Dean College in Franklin. Created to provide regional employers with technology training solutions, the Center was designed by Cambridge-based Bruner Cott & Associates. 

Austin's first biotech incubator, Biowalk LLC, plans to lease 17,000 sf of office and lab space. Biowalk's goal is to coordinate bioscience startups with services, infrastructure and funding, as well as generating student interest in science. A March 2002 opening is planned.

Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente Health Plan is planning to spend $375 million on a new 1.2 million-sf hospital and 870,000-sf medical office building in Santa Clara, doubling Kaiser's current Santa Clara facilities.  A new $7-million emergency department will be added to Kaiser's Santa Teresa Hospital in South San Jose, more than tripling its existing 5,000-sf emergency facilities. A hospital in Redwood City is still in the planning stage.