Industry News

America Online (AOL) has expansion plans in Northern Virginia. Construction was expected to start in late 2000 on a new $555-million technology center in Gainesville, similar to the one AOL has in Manassas. Both are in Prince William County, Va. At the company’s headquarters in Dulles, an $86-million expansion is under way with two new buildings where 1,200 employees will be housed. One of the buildings is nearing completion.

The Veterans Administration has awarded a contract to LCOR of Berwyn, Pa., to develop a $150-million, 600,000-sf medical and research complex across the street from the Duke University Medical Center in Durham. The project will include 19,000 sf of primary care clinic space and 40,000 sf of medical and research space, plus retail and commercial space with parking on a 3.5-acre lot. As many as seven buildings are planned, with construction scheduled to begin in 2001. NBBJ, based in Research Triangle Park, N.C., is the designer for the project.

Pennsylvania State University has completed installation of a comprehensive new $1 million wayfinding and signage system at its 540-acre University Park campus. A $700-million campuswide construction program over the past five years has created difficulties, especially for new students and students with disabilities, in finding accessible pathways, building names, and accessible building entrances. The university has established an annual budget to maintain and perpetuate the new signage system.

Vanderbilt University recently broke ground for the new Jacobs Hall Addition and Renovation, a $28 million, three-story, 150,000-sf facility that will unite the departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering, giving the School of Engineering a new campus identity. Classrooms, lecture halls, shop space and indoor and outdoor public gathering spaces will be located on the ground floor. Teaching and research labs will be located on the upper floors.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) broke ground in late October 2000 on a new $45-million Sports and Fitness Center designed by the architectural firms of Roche & Dinkeloo and Sasaki Associates. The MIT Center will include an Olympic-class pool and a separate teaching pool; a state-of-the-art health-fitness center; a multi-activity court for volleyball, aerobics, recreational basketball, in-line hockey, and other activities; six squash courts; a sports medicine center; administrative offices; and other support facilities.