Industry News

Yahoo's new Sunnyvale headquarters, completed in April of this year, features a full-service fitness center housing isotonic and cardiovascular equipment. The 3,500-sf glass-enclosed center has a 1,200-sf aerobics and yoga studio and offers health education courses, fitness classes and massage therapy. Adjoined by volleyball and basketball courts as well as a jogging trail along the bay, the center is visited by approximately 200 of Yahoo's 1,500 employees daily. Managed by Time Out Services, the fitness center is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

 Assurant Group is planning to move its hazard insurance processing center into a new $20 million office facility in Springfield by spring of 2002, pending approval of city and state training and infrastructure improvement grants. Assurant is jointly based in Atlanta and Miami.

Bacharach Institute for Rehabilitation has selected Granary Associates Architects to provide architectural, interior design and engineering services for a new Aquatic Center and Ambulatory Care Center. The Bacharach Institute, located adjacent to the Atlantic City Medical Center's Mainland Division on the Richard Stockton College Campus in New Jersey, houses 80 adult inpatient beds and offers comprehensive outpatient services to children and adults.

Austin-based Ambion Inc.'s Diagnostic RNA unit has built a new manufacturing lab and is seeking approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin manufacturing products. Shifting its focus to the molecular pathology market, Ambion began the development in October 2000. The facility also houses space for devising disease test kit formulas.

Smith & Nephew Inc. is expanding in Massachusetts. The company plans to open a new 80,000-sf Andover headquarters for its Endoscopy Division in 2002. The existing headquarters building will be converted to a 110,000-sf manufacturing facility, and a 60,000-sf Mansfield, Mass., manufacturing plant will be expanded by 40,000 sf. The Endoscopy Division makes arthroscopic products.