Industry News

 Semiconductor manufacturer Extreme Devices is expanding by opening a bigger chip fabrication plant with adjoining offices in Southeast Austin. The combined 43,200-sf facility is a significant expansion from the firm's previous 6,000-sf location. The fabrication plant has cost Extreme Devices less than $10 million to build.

Siemens Westinghouse Power Corp. is considering locating a $125-million manufacturing plant in the 9,600-acre Alliance industrial park in Fort Worth. Developed by Ross Perot Jr.'s Hillwood venture, the site would house 180,000-sf of manufacturing and 35,000-sf of office space for Siemens' new stationary fuel cells division. Employing up to 500 workers initially, the plant could eventually expand to 430,000 sf of manufacturing and 70,000 sf of office space in the next three or four years. Other potential sites include Orlando, Fla. and Pittsburgh, Pa.

 Stanford University is building the James H. Clark Center for Biomedical Engineering Sciences, a 225,000-sf bio-science research facility slated for occupancy in 2003. Promoting the Stanford interdisciplinary initiative called Bio-X, Clark Center will house 50 faculty from biosciences, physical sciences and engineering.

Gigawave Technologies of San Antonio is preparing to move from an outgrown 3,000-sf  into a new 10,000-sf facility. Gigawave provides training services for Cisco Systems and for companies installing new wireless LANs.

Signature Bioscience is seeking between 70,000-sf and 80,000-sf in San Francisco for its headquarters, currently housed in 27,000-sf in Hayward and 28,000-sf in Richmond. The Richmond facility may be retained in the relocation. Draws for a San Francisco headquarters include the new UC San Francisco Mission Bay campus and its planned life science campus. Catellus Development Corp., developer of the life science facility, has estimated completion of the 155,000-sf building in 2002, not timely for Signature's move.