Industry News

Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island opened its 140,000-sf South Pavilion in Providence in September of 2009. Designed by Anshen + Allen with Walsh Brothers as construction manager, the five-story facility features a 50,000-sf neonatal intensive care unit with 70 single-family private rooms. Providing specialty obstetric care for high-risk pregnancies, the tower also houses a 30-room Antenatal Care Unit. LEED Silver sustainable design certification will be sought for the project.

Medplast completed an expansion of its 50,000-sf manufacturing facility in Tempe, Ariz., in September of 2009. The project features two Class 100,000 cleanrooms for injection molding and automated assembly as well as white room manufacturing suites.

The Office of Health and Safety of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is currently planning the 11th International Symposium on Biosafety to be held in Atlanta on January 23-27, 2010. The focus of the symposium is “Management Challenges for Safe Operation of BSL3/ABSL3 Facilities.” In addition to the symposium, there will be two days of pre-conference courses.

The University of Massachusetts Medical School broke ground on the $405 million Albert Sherman Center in Worcester in September of 2009. The nine-story, 500,000-sf facility is slated for completion by early 2012. Designed by Architectural Resources Cambridge, the project will house advanced biomedical research laboratories, a 500-seat auditorium, the UMass Gene Therapy Center, and the UMass Center for Stem Cell Biology.

Crawford County Memorial Hospital will begin construction in fall of 2009 on a $31 million hospital in Denison, Iowa. The 78,000-sf facility will be complemented by an adjacent 16,000-sf outpatient clinic and is expected to open in June of 2011. Sited on 40 acres, the hospital will feature 25 private patient rooms, an emergency department, an expanded surgical suite, and an MRI.