Research and Development

The American Institute of Mathematics (AIM) is planning a new conference center on a 190-acre site in Morgan Hill, Calif. Funded by a $5-million grant from the National Science Foundation, the AIM Research Conference Center (ARCC) will include the use of two existing buildings and renovation of another large building on the site. The architectural style for the new research center is modeled on the famous "Alhambra", the Moorish palace in Granada, Spain, renowned for its geometric proportions and mathematically intricate patterns.

Geomet Technologies has opened a 6,000-sf facility in Gaithersburg, Md., comprised of administrative space, three laboratories, and cold storage facilities. The facility will enable Geomet, a subsidiary of the Springfield-based homeland defense company Versar, to perform biological detection services testing. Operating as a biological safety level two (BSL-2) lab as certified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the labs can perform R&D on dangerous biological organisms including dead anthrax strains.

International Engineering & Manufacturing  (IEM), maker of a liquid sensoring device, is gearing for expansion with a move into a 26,000-sf facility on 2.5 acres in Glenolden. The consolidation will involve relocating the company's headquarters into the new facility, which will house 3,000 sf of office space; the rest is dedicated to manufacturing.

The Institute for Genomic Research has awarded DPR Construction the contract to build a new four-story lab facility. Located in Rockville next to the not-for-profit’s 12-acre campus, the building includes wet and dry lab facilities, support and administrative offices, a 400-car parking lot, and a stormwater management pond. Development manager Staubach is working with architect Leo A. Daly on the project team. Construction of the facility is expected to begin in July of this year, with completion slated for September 2003.

San Antonio-based Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has opened the 9,700-sf Network Equipment/Building Systems (NEBS) dedicated testing facility for telecommunications equipment. NEBS testing determines how equipment performs in a variety of operating conditions, and enables clients to meet an industry requirement for pre-product evaluation. Included in the facility are several environmental chambers, such as a large-platform earthquake testing facility and a large walk-in chamber.

Dynport Vaccine, a joint venture between DynCorp and pharmaceutical company Porton International, has broken ground on a three-story office in Frederick.  Dynport Vaccine, the prime systems contractor for the Department of Defense’s vaccine acquisition program, will use the facility to develop biodefense vaccines for FDA production and licensing. The building will consolidate four facilities, as well as providing Department of Defense office space.

New England Biolabs has selected Boston-based Jung/Brannen Associates as architect of record for the design of its new 150,000-sf Ipswich laboratory building. The firm will collaborate with Weston Williamson of London to create the three-story R&D facility.

Advancing California's Emerging Technologies (ACET) may team up with Catellus Development to create ACET's new home on 3.3 acres of the 213-acre former U.S. Naval Air Station Fleet Industrial Center. Originally a bioscience incubator, ACET has expanded its focus to include technology and energy applications. Currently operating from 8,800 sf of smaller Alameda Naval Air station labs, the ACET is seeking a $64-million grant to cover land, design and building costs for the new facility.

Delta Search Labs may sign a lease for a 50,000 sf facility in Cambridge's Kendall Square, adjacent to its present 15,000-sf basement location. Delta's current operations include office space, a supercomputer, and a visualization cave.  Over the next three years Delta plans to develop a $300-million collaborative supercomputer laboratory including wind tunnel, robotic, photonic, and prototype lab facilities in the new building. The lab will be staffed with experts and available for research to firms in a variety of industries.

The Environmental Protection Agency's new 1.2 million-sf campus will be ready for occupancy in summer 2002. The largest facility ever built for the EPA, the campus can house 2,200 employees and 10,000 research animals, and will include 400 individual labs, a cafeteria, a conference center and a child-care center.  The National Computer Center, which contains the agency's nationwide data, has already moved to the new headquarters.

The 444,000-sf Boston Tech Center is being retrofitted as a lab building by Cabot, Cabot & Forbes of New England. Originally designed as a telecommunications hotel, the facility will finish construction as a shell biomedical building and is projected to become a hub for lab companies. The three-story building will house two levels of ground-floor parking to accommodate 650 vehicles. A 40,000-sf glass atrium will be located on the second and third floors.

Gaithersburg, Md.-based Avalon Pharmaceuticals is seeking a 44,000- to 55,000-sf Montgomery County facility to house its R&D and administrative departments. Programming and design has begun for the planned analytical and organic chemistry laboratories for drug discovery. The facility may be pre-existing or a building that can be retrofitted or built-out.

Northrop Grumman, based in Los Angeles, is expanding its operations in Maryland near the Baltimore/Washington International Airport. A new 100,000-sf facility will be built to consolidate its regional operations and to provide swing space while the company makes final expansion plans--possibly as much as 15,000 sf--for northern Rockville.

The University of California San Diego (UCSD) has awarded the San Diego office of McCarthy Building Cos. a $42.4-million contract to build a new School of Medicine research facility. McCarthy, based in Newport Beach, Calif., began construction in February on the 146,382-sf, four-story facility. The project is slated for completion by February of 2004. UCSD’s 110,000-sf Powell-Focht Bioengineering Building is also being built by McCarthy.

The California Department of Justice has opened a sophisticated new $18-million, 68,000-sf crime lab at Point Richmond to help identify suspects through their DNA for previously unsolved crimes. Housed at the new lab are 141 scientists, the Cal DNA Data Bank, the Missing Persons DNA program, and the Cold Hit program, which compares crime scene evidence with the DNA of known qualifying offenders to identify suspects in unsolved crimes. The lab’s database of 210,000 DNA samples is the country’s largest.