Industry News

ONI Systems has plans for a new 455,000-sf, five-building corporate headquarters on 2.5 acres in South San Jose. The optical networking equipment vendor currently employs 400 at its operations in North San Jose.

Fairchild Semiconductor has a new $440,000 facility at the Palomar Crest Corporate Center in Carlsbad, Calif. The building, which includes private offices, conference rooms, and computer labs, was designed by Cooper Roberts Bennett Commercial Design of San Diego. Fairchild has hired San Diego-based Pacific Interior Systems to build out 25,000 sf of office space at the new facility.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, has begun a $163 million renovation and expansion of the hospitals that merged in 1996. The four-year project has begun with the renovation of 60 post partum rooms to accommodate private showers, VCRs, a sleep chair and refrigerator, all of which is scheduled for completion by the end of summer 2000.

Wheelock College, a 112-year-old private liberal arts college, is doing a complete $20 million renovation of its classroom building and adding both classroom and faculty office space to its activities building. For further expansion, the college also will buy Hebrew College's nearby Brookline campus, which includes a small classroom facility and a Guilded Age mansion. Hebrew College will relocate to a new $26 million, seven-acre campus currently under construction in Newton, Mass., next fall.

Bentley College will renovate Kresge Hall--a five-story, 54 unit dormitory. Bentley has retained Needham, Mass.-based Bowdoin Construction Corp. to handle the project, which will cosmetically upgrade all dorm rooms and significantly enhance space usage.