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.
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.
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.
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.
NASA/Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., has awarded the University of California, Santa Cruz a $330 million, ten-year contract to manage the development of a University Affiliated Research Center. As the first such development established by the space agency, the center will focus on interdisciplinary research in information technology, astrobiology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. NASA is also creating a 200-acre research and education park at Moffett Federal Airfield.
The Boeing Co. will open its new 100,000-sf virtual war simulation center in St. Louis in 2004. The $20 million facility will enable customers to experience how different programs work together, a process that could create more integrated systems business for Boeing. The center will employ 75 workers when it opens, with plans to grow to 150 employees within three or four years.
The University of Texas is planning the Texas Center for High-Intensity Laser Science. The facility will accommodate scientists studying and manipulating the interactions of matter with a high-intensity laser. The center, slated for completion in three years, will be built in an underground bay on the university’s Austin campus.
Treasure Valley Renewable Resources is planning to construct a new biorefinery plant near Ontario, Ore. The $77-million sustainable facility will use corn, wheat, barley, and milo as feed stock to create food-grade fiber, starch, and protein concentrate for human food and aquaculture industries. Carbon dioxide will also be captured for the production of ethanol and commercial sales. Additionally, the wet-spent grain byproduct generated by the facility will be used as livestock feed.
Agricultural biotech company PlantGenix is relocating from Philadelphia to expanded offices in the Great Valley Corporate Center in Malvern, Pa. The new facility will enable PlantGenix to pursue its plant-based production of a variety of chemical and biological compounds.
