Industry News

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's new medical research building, designed by Lord Aeck & Sargent of Atlanta, will have a nontraditional design, placing desks near windows to take advantage of natural light, and using interior walls for utilities. Newcomb & Boyd of Atlanta is providing mechanical and electrical engineering for the new structure, ensuring ready access to the utilities in the building.

The University of California, San Francisco’s new 43-acre research campus at Mission Bay is under construction. Phase one includes a 385,000-sf research building; a 165,000-sf center for human genetics, developmental biology, and developmental neuroscience; and a campus community center sporting food courts, a health club and pool, and a library—all scheduled to open by 2003. The developer of the huge project is Catellus.

Purdue Pharmaceuticals is expanding its new $25 million, 140,000-sf greenfield solid dosage manufacturing facility in Wilson, which ws completed in March 2000. Full-scale manufacturing is scheduled to begin by the second quarter of 2001. At full operation later this year, the facility will accommodate 150 employees. The Southeast Regional office of Clark, Richardson & Biskup Consulting Engineers Inc.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in partnership with the General Services Administration (GSA) broke ground in March 2001 at the former Naval Surface Warfare Center on Phase 1a of the four-story, 114,000-gsf Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Washington-based C&R Construction is performing the excavation work. The GSA has not yet awarded the Phase 1b construction contract, but completion of the facility is anticipated in fall 2002.

Tularik hopes to locate approximately 250,000 sf of research space to expand its drug discovery and development operations in the South San Francisco area, where the company is based. The biotechnology company expects to grow from 285 employees, currently housed in two locations, to over 300 in the year 2001.