The Department of Defense has awarded Bates Engineers/Contractors Inc. the $8.7-million contract to build a four-bay, 55,000-sf maintenance hangar at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. The project will include a squadron operations center.
The Department of Defense has selected the Waynesboro office of GSC Construction Inc. to construct a $21-million hazardous training facility for the FBI. The facility will be located at the Redstone Arsenal in Alabama.
The University of Texas at San Antonio has leased 8,000 sf in Brooks Building 175 at Brooks Air Force Base to house a vaccine research training facility. Preparing molecular biologists, fermentation technicians, and genetic engineers to conduct vaccine-related research, the facility is slated to open by fall of 2003. The training center will accommodate both UTSA and military graduate and undergraduate students. City officials hope that the training facility will cause San Antonio to be chosen as the site of a proposed $1.5-billion national vaccine center.
The new 2,300,000-sf headquarters of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is under construction. Located on eight acres in Alexandria, the facility consists of five 10-story buildings in a U-shaped complex, with a total of 3,800 parking spaces in two garages. Designed by architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the headquarters features a pedestrian accessible 10-story atrium connecting the two wings of Building A, with all five buildings linked via underground walkways.
The City of Woodland is preparing to begin construction on a new $10.7-million police headquarters facility in January 2003. Upon completion in February 2004, the design-build project is expected to be one of the nation's first police facilities certified by the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System.
The General Services Administration (GSA) is building a $141-million Class A federal building in San Francisco. Designed by Morphosis of Santa Monica, Calif., the 600,000-sf project is comprised of a hybrid two-building set, an 18-story glass tower connected via a 3,000-sf plaza-level cafeteria to an adjacent four-story, 100,000-sf building. The tower is 65 feet wide, allowing natural light to enter on both sides, and features a stainless steel screen that acts as a natural circulation engine on the building's south side.
The US Postal Service has completed installation of over 175 advanced video surveillance systems in postal facilities to date. This includes systems in the Trenton, Hamilton and Eatontown facilities that were under national scrutiny as a result of the Anthrax terrorist threat. The video systems, installed by North American Video, are deployed in both retail and processing areas in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania facilities.
Hays County has contracted the Austin office of Fort Worth-based Carter & Burgess to create the master plan and design for its consolidated courts and government center. Located on an eight acre county-owned site in central San Marcos, the complex will include four buildings. The first two facilities are estimated to reach 140,000- to 150,000 sf. Hays County currently occupies 80,000-sf in six separate San Marcos buildings.
Fairfax-based Lorton Arts Foundation has submitted a proposal to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to redevelop the 41.4-acre former Lorton prison site as a community arts, education and cultural center. Centerbrook Architects of Centerbrook, Conn., designed the proposed Lorton Workhouse Arts Center, which would include galleries, event space, offices, artist studios, theatrical and production areas, heritage exhibits, and an outdoor music shed.
The City of Chester is engaged in a 63,000-sf renovation of City Hall. The 20-year-old, two-story facility will be updated by A&E Construction with a new, open glass atrium lobby overlooked by the Council Chamber. Designed by Hillier Architecture, the project began construction in February of 2002 and is slated for completion by December. Part of Chester's downtown revitalization initiative, the renovated facility will consolidate public services in a single structure.
The Texas Association of Counties is constructing a new eight-story, 82,000-sf office two blocks from the Texas Capitol in Austin. The nonprofit will occupy 70% of the facility and will lease out the remaining 26,000-sf. Designed by a collaboration of Austin architectural firm Steinbomer & Associates with Kell Munoz of San Antonio, the facility will house a 200-person training center, a business center, and an attached multi-story 292-car parking garage.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum (HOK) of St. Louis contracts to oversee initial projects of the Ames Modernization Program, a five-year, $430-million upgrade of the USDA animal disease research facilities on a 480-acre site in Ames, Iowa. The program will rebuild and centralize multiple laboratory and research centers, creating state-of-the-art laboratory and office environments in a campus designed for optimum functionality, flexibility, security, and future expansion.
North Carolina State University is developing the 1,334-acre Centennial Campus in Raleigh, N.C., a mixed-use "technopolis" of university, corporate and government R&D facilities. With 1.3 million sf built in 16 major building modules, the Centennial Campus will also include a town center, business incubators, housing, and an executive conference center and hotel. The campus is comprised of the 1,120-acre Centennial Campus and the 214-acre Centennial Biomedical Campus.
The State of Connecticut has selected Flad & Associates to design a renovation to their emergency response laboratory facility in Hartford. Flad is providing full architectural design services including programming and planning for the renovation of 2,500 sf of biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) laboratory and support space to provide the State Department of Public Health with state-of-the-art holding and testing areas for hazardous substances and material.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is building a 3,000,000-gsf campus on 130 acres in the 660-acre White Oak Federal Center in Silver Spring, Md. The General Services Administration's National Capital Region broke ground on the first 125,000-gsf building in March of 2001. Designed by Kling Lindquist and RTKL Associates, the facility is a laboratory for the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Now 40% complete, the lab is slated for occupancy in early fiscal 2003.
