Industry News

Indian School of Business is under construction in Hyderabad, the "Silicon Valley" of India. The campus encompasses 660,000 sf and is located on 250 acres. Each classroom will be fully wired, with a computer and videoconferencing capability at each desk. The communications network will be set up to ensure instant global connectivity. The school will accommodate a large number of formal and informal break-out spaces. John Portman & Associates designed the school, which will be the first fully air-conditioned school in India.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Oakland Scientific Facility expected to take delivery of a $33 million IBM supercomputer in December 2000. The Oakland facility, a 75,000-sf former Wells Fargo Bank building, has undergone an $11 million retrofit including a new glass facade, seismic upgrades, a new cooling system, and special security devices. The computers will occupy rows of refrigerator-size cabinets that fill the building's first two floors. The project has been developed by Encinal Broadway, headed by Peter Wang.

The Armory will be converted to a telecommunications facility by  FowlerFlanaganTechnologies Partners LLC of Larkspur, Calif. The company has telecommunications facilities in 12 cities, but this is the first in the San Francisco Bay area. The aging, fortress-like structure will provide physical protection for the critical equipment it will house. In addition, the building, which has good infrastructure, is located near Pacific Bell's central office.

Union Station Telecom Center is under construction at the site of a former warehouse in northeast Washington. Construction began in summer 2000 to restore the six-story, 440,000-sf structure in preparation for tenant build-out.

Genentech plans to double its R&D space with three new buildings at the company’s South San Francisco campus. Construction is scheduled to begin in spring 2001 on the 288,744-sf project, which will create a total of nearly 600,000 sf for research at the site. Genentech has several other construction projects under way or planned: a 60,000-sf building opening in March, with an accompanying 500-vehicle parking garage opening in May; 120,000-sf of office space at Building 6, which broke ground in late January; and a just-completed 112,000-sf office building.