HP Leverages Integrated Real Estate Portfolio System for Streamlined Performance
The merger of Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Compaq initiated a comprehensive reevaluation of the company's combined real estate portfolio and space management systems. HP's Real Estate and WorkPlace Services group faced the challenge of integrating a diverse set of Real Estate (RE) and Facility Management (FM) data systems that would track information on the combined companies' properties worldwide, which amounted to tens of millions of square feet. Through the consolidation process HP created a powerful integrated space management system that functions on a global level to enable the management of the real estate portfolio and its space utilization.

The Learning Curve Can Be Long and Expensive
The University of California, Davis, with more than 30,000 students on a 5,300-acre campus, is incorporating BSL-3 labs into four of its major departments: agriculture and environmental sciences, biological sciences, medicine, and veterinary medicine. The engineering department is launching a large biomedical engineering program, which will likely require BSL-3 lab space, as well. The expansion of Level-3 labs greatly increases the University's ability to research emerging infectious diseases and plant pathogens, but the process comes with higher costs and more complications than anticipated.

University of California, Santa Barbara
Situated on the last ocean-front space available on the University of California, Santa Barbara campus, the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management lives up to its role as a leader in the research of environmental issues, the training of research scientists and professionals, and the identification and solving of environmental problems.

Boston University
Researchers are continuing to move in to Boston University's Life Science and Engineering Building, recently completed in April 2005. The new 187,000-sf facility houses research laboratories dedicated to the fields of biology, chemistry, biomedical engineering, and bioinformatics. Forty-five permanent faculty members will perform university, private, and grant-driven research there, including research funded by a Whitaker Foundation grant for biomedical engineering and a $10-million grant from NIH's National Institute of General Medical Sciences to study new methodologies to produce novel chemical libraries for biological screening.

Fume Hood-Intensive Laboratory Design Emphasizes Flexibility
Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, is scoring high marks with Chernoff Hall, its new fume hood-intensive, multi-use chemistry lab. The facility, which received a "Lab of the Year" high honors award from R&D Magazine for innovation and safety, is the first building in North America designed around the use of controlled air volume (CAV) fume hoods. The $57-million (USD), five-story complex opened in summer 2002 and houses the University's chemistry department, providing laboratory space for more than 3,000 undergraduate students and 120 researchers.

Sells Property to a Non-Profit Group, Then Leases it Back to Finance Construction of Medical Research Tower
Toronto's University Health Network (UHN) found itself in a difficult position three years ago: It needed to expand its research capacity by 400,000 sf, but could not afford the capital investment. The solution was to let someone else construct the building, and then lease back all of the space, using most of it for UHN research but subleasing some of it as a source of income.