Research and Development

Tysons Foods is working with Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum of St. Louis to design a new $40 million research, development, and training facility in Springdale, Ark. The Discovery Center will be sited on 16 acres at Tyson’s corporate campus and will accommodate Tyson’s research and development team, management training staff, and marketing group. The center will house 220 employees and will feature 20 product development kitchens; a USDA-inspected pilot plant; a consumer focus group area; a packaging design and development testing facilities; and a proprietary sensory testing lab.

The State of Texas and International Sematech are launching the Advanced Materials Research Center (AMRC) with the University of Texas and other Texas universities. Located in Austin, the semiconductor research consortium will accelerate the commercialization of critical technology research. Funding in the amount of $40 million will be provided by the newly formed Texas Enterprise Fund; the remaining $160 million will be funded from various sources over the next four years.

Washington State University (WSU) is planning the seven-building Research and Education Complex on its Pullman campus. Each building will accommodate approximately 100,000 sf. Building 1, a $39 million addition to the existing Johnson Hall, will house bioscience research and is expected to reach completion in June 2005. Building 2, the $62-million Biotechnology/Life Sciences Facility, will include a vivarium.

Spectrum Astro, a designer and manufacturer of space mission satellites, has opened a new center in Gilbert, Ariz. Sited on 80 acres near Spectrum Astro’s corporate headquarters, the 135,000-sf factory accommodates assembly, integration, and test space. The facility can produce more than 20 satellites simultaneously. The facility features multiple cleanroom integration and test areas, including a 14,400-sf assembly bay.

San Jose State University  (SJSU) has opened the Space Technology Center and the Metropolitan Technology Center in the NASA Research Park in Mountain View, Calif. Both centers are sited in building 583C and share laboratory, office, and classroom space. The Space Technology Center, led by SJSU, is a government, industry, and educational consortium that includes Stanford University, Santa Clara University, and The Aerospace Corp.

Arizona State University’s ASU Research Park in Phoenix will be the home of the Army Flexible Display Center, a government-industry collaboration center for the research, development, and manufacture of multi-functional display technology. The 250,000-sf building previously accommodated Motorola’s flat panel display R&D operations.

The University of Wisconsin Medical School has contracted Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum to design a $265-million Interdisciplinary Research Complex on the school’s Madison campus. The first $135-million phase of the project consists of 437,600 sf of laboratory, vivarium, imaging, and gross anatomy space and is slated for occupancy in 2008. The facility will accommodate interdisciplinary health science research and promote lab-to-clinic research. Zimmerman Design Group of Milwaukee is also on the project team.    

UC Davis is partnering with Sierra Nevada College to create the $24-million Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences in Incline Village, Nev. The facility will be created in cooperation with the Desert Research Institute and the RAND Corp. and will accommodate science and teaching on the preservation of alpine lakes. Housing a 300-person conference center, laboratories and classrooms for Sierra Nevada College, and offices and laboratories for the UC Davis Tahoe Research Group and the Desert Research Institute, the center will incorporate environmentally friendly building practices.

San Diego-based Scripps Research Institute is developing a 364,000-sf research laboratory and administrative compound on farmland in Palm Beach County, Fla. The $140 million facility will house state-of-the-art biomedical research labs with a focus on applied research and commercialization of scientific discoveries. Slated to open in 2006, the facility will collaborate with the Florida Atlantic University-based Enterprise Development Corp. to develop industry partnerships. Scripps plans to hire between 30 and 40 staffers in the first year of operation.

North Carolina State University may add as much as 240,000-sf of office space to its Centennial Campus in Raleigh. Plans describe the development of several additional office buildings on 5.7 acres of the 1,334-acre site. The Centennial Campus will foster collaboration by allowing faculty and graduate students to work side-by-side with corporate researchers. Four buildings are currently under construction on the campus.

The Eisai Research Institute of Boston, a biopharmaceutical research firm, is planning a $50-million expansion and consolidation project in Andover, Mass. Eisai will break ground in late summer of 2004 on a 150,000-sf facility replacing a 66,825-sf office sited adjacent to the company’s existing 40,000-sf drug discovery facility. A new 5,000-sf addition is also included in the project, which involves the consolidation and relocation of Eisai’s Wilmington lab space to the new facility when it opens in 2006.

The Science Park-Research Division of the University of Texas’ M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is expanding its Smithville, Texas, campus with the addition of a 10,000-sf conference center. The project includes a 300-seat auditorium and a new physical plant. Construction will begin in early 2004. The division’s campus currently houses five buildings on 720 acres.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is engaged in a five-year, $40 million renovation of its laboratory space at the John Wesley Powell Building in Reston. The sixth phase of an eight phase project, the renovation will create state-of-the-art labs enabling the USGS to provide reliable biological science information. Designed by Burt Hill Kosar Rittelmann, the general contractor for the project is Grunley Construction, with Bovis Lend Lease as construction manager.

Ktech is moving into an 83,400-sf facility in Sandia, N.M., to expand its commercial activity in the semiconductor, sensor, material coatings, and robotics industries. Ktech is a Sandia National Laboratories contractor, supplying operations, engineering, and maintenance services to the Department of Energy’s Pulsed Power Research Center. Ktech’s operations were previously located in six offices in the Albuquerque area.

Indianapolis, Ind.-based Polaris Laboratories has opened a new fluid analysis testing facility in Houston. The 5,000-sf laboratory, which can complete most routine testing in 24 hours, has the capacity to process 3,000 samples per day. Polaris provides fluid analysis testing to the transportation, power generation, and gas compression industries.