Biotechnology

Construction is sixty percent complete on Marshall University 's Robert G. Byrd Biotechnology Center in Huntington, W.V. The $42-million, six-story structure will accommodate two auditoriums, three teaching labs, several conference rooms, and approximately 45 laboratories. Slated for completion in fall 2006, the facility will be open for classes in January 2007. The center is the Marshall University's largest capital improvement project to date.

The Hudson-Alpha Institute for Biotechnology will construct a $130-million research institute and campus in Huntsville, Ala., by 2007. Sited on 120 acres in the Cummings Research Park, the project will be the second largest biotechnology institute on the second largest biotech campus in the nation upon completion. The north wing will house eight science teams and the south wing will house eight small biotech companies that can expand to sites in the biotech park to accommodate growth.

Human Genome Sciences (HGS) is nearing completion of its $250-million manufacturing facility in Rockville, Md. Sited on ten acres on the Belward Research Campus of Johns Hopkins University near HGS' existing headquarters, the 290,000-sf facility will enable HGS to produce several different biotech drugs on a commercial scale including human proteins, antibodies, and fusion proteins created by the joining of two genes. Construction is expected to reach completion by year-end 2005 with validation of the facility to follow in 2006. 

Swiss pharmaceutical maker Novartis AG has renovated the historic 1927 New England Candy Co. factory in Cambridge to create a 500,000-sf biomedical research facility. The renovated building now houses labs, offices, breakout rooms, a 180-seat auditorium, two conference rooms, and a six-story atrium. Designed to foster interaction and collaboration, the labs and offices are co-located, with breakout rooms and kitchens on the perimeter of each floor. The building features state-of-the-art power, water, air handling, communications, and security systems.

The University of Florida is developing the 23,500-gsf Center of Excellence for Regenerative Heath Biotechnology in Alachua County, Fla. Sited 13 miles from the University's Gainesville campus in the Sid Martin Biotechnology Development Incubator in the Progress Corporate Park, the facility will house up to 11,080 sf of cleanrooms and support space.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) broke ground on June 27, 2005 on a life sciences and bioengineering center in Worcester, Mass. Sited on a former industrial brownfield, the 14-story center is the first facility in a planned 11-acre life sciences development called Gateway Parklife sciences park. WPI's 124,600-sf center is slated for completion in early 2007 and will accommodate laboratories, support facilities, and a renovated industrial building housing meeting rooms and offices.

Nabi BioPharmaceuticals dedicated its new 12,000-sf vaccine manufacturing facility in Boca Raton, Fla., in June, 2005. Sited at the company's existing headquarters, the $20-million facility will produce StaphVax, a vaccine for the prevention of hospital-born staph infections.

Biotechnology firm Genitope is relocating its headquarters and manufacturing operations from Redwood City to 220,0000 sf in Fremont, Calif. Genitope has signed two fifteen and a half year leases for two facilities in the Ardenwood Technology Park at $2.35 per square foot or $517,000 per month. The facilities, which will cost $60 million to build out, will be occupied by Genitope upon completion of construction in 2006.

Bayer Healthcare has completed a 100,000-sf office and laboratory facility in Norwood, Mass. Designed by Margulies & Associatesof Boston, the new space consists of 80,000 sf of administrative offices and support areas as well as 20,000 sf of laboratories. Supporting the company's Diagnostics Division, the facility includes visitor and training labs, a test methods lab, an analytical lab, a systems engineering lab, storage for chemicals, and controlled-temperature storage coolers.

The $100 million California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research is nearing completion at the Mission Bay campus in South San Francisco. The 153,000-sf facility is the first of four buildings that will make up the institute known as QB3 and is connected to U.C. San Francisco's Genentech Hall on all five stories. The Mission Bay facility will house a magnetic resonance imaging machine, a high through-put screening facility, a 250,000-compound chemical library for drug development, and 8,000 CPUs.

Translational Genomics (TGen) will officially dedicate its new $46 million headquarters on March 22, 2005. Located in Phoenix, Ariz., the TGen headquarters is sited in a 173,000-sf building, the first in a new downtown campus called the Phoenix Bioscience Center at Cooper Square. Other tenants in the building include the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), occupying the entire 23,000-sf second floor, and the International Genomics Consortium (IGC).

Clark University will dedicate the new Cathy '83 and Marc '81 Center for Bioscience on April 28, 2005. Designed by Tsoi/Kobus and Associates of Cambridge, the 50,000-sf facility houses two classrooms; twelve research labs; seven teaching labs; two conference rooms; fourteen faculty offices; a sequencing facility; a dark room; and three lounges.

Ground has been broken on a new 170,000-sf research laboratory and office facility in St. Louis for the Center of Research, Technology and Entrepreneurial Exchange (CORTEX), a non-profit collaboration of Washington University, St. Louis University, The Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation, and the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Designed by HOK, the $36 million project incorporates sustainable design principles and will pursue LEEDTM  certification from the U.S.

Genentech has signed a lease for 780,000 sf in South San Francisco, which may be the largest single lease ever penned in the northern California Bay Area. Developer Slough Estates will construct the three-, four-, and eight-story life science facilities in two phases over the next four years. Construction cost is estimated at approximately $325 million. The project will consist of roughly 40 percent office and 60 percent laboratory space.

FivePrime Therapeutics will sublease an entire floor in the new 190,000-sf J. David Gladstone Institutes building at Mission Bay in San Francisco. The Gladstone building was dedicated on December 6, 2004. The facility will enable FivePrime to develop new protein and antibody therapeutics utilizing an accelerated drug discovery approach. FivePrime will relocate its South San Francisco operations to the Gladstone building in San Francisco, a city which has a payroll tax exemption for biotech companies.