Industry News

Chiron Corp. is seeking approval from the city of Emeryville to begin construction in summer 2002 on a new 365,000-sf lab and office complex at its Emeryville headquarters.  The new facility would expand Chiron’s manufacturing space for drugs awaiting approval. If approved, the expansion could take up to two years to complete.  Construction of a 1,000-space parking structure for the new building is already nearing completion.

The World Bank, whose 8,000 employees are housed at its headquarters in downtown Washington, is planning to relocate its back-up office and computer operations outside the District following the events of September 11. The 200,000-sf Presidents Park office facility in Herndon is under consideration. Formerly occupied by Winstar, the structure could accommodate computers and personnel in an emergency, as well as provide technical data center equipment.

Cisco Systems’ planned 10-building, 1.5-million-sf office campus in Boxborough may be enlarged by half again as much if approvals from state and town agencies are granted. An additional 500,000 sf in three buildings would be added to the Boxborough site, where three structures are half built, and four more have already been approved. The San  Jose, Calif.-based company hopes to consolidate several of its Massachusetts facilities at the Boxborough site. Move-in is anticipated in mid-2003 at the earliest.

Vanguard Group has completed construction of three 120,000-sf structures at its 300-acre campus in Malvern. The company is beginning preliminary work on an additional 2.5 million sf, with phase one construction on the proposed project starting as early as spring 2002. The multi-phased project would begin with two buildings, each 320,000 sf, on 70 acres of the company’s 250-acre Downington campus.

The University of California, Berkeley, has issued an RFQ for the transformation of 26 acres at its University Village in Albany to a $100-million, mixed-use residential and retail campus. The University hopes to begin construction by early 2003 at the site, where currently student and faculty housing, a community center, baseball fields, and university agricultural research space are located. The selected developer will be asked to improve the community center and baseball fields, build a child and infant care center, and protect as open space two creeks running through the site.