Industry News

Highland Hospital will initiate construction in early 2009 on a $682 million acute care tower in Oakland, Calif. Replacing Highland’s existing inpatient facility, the 230,000-sf project will create a nine-story, seismically sound replacement tower with 160 beds.

Clemson University is constructing the $11.5 million Rhodes Hall Annex in Clemson, S.C. The 30,000-sf facility will house research labs, teaching labs, and classrooms for the bioengineering department. Built to attain LEED Silver sustainable design certification, the three-story building will be constructed of materials sourced from within a 500 mile radius of the project. Construction waste will be recycled, including removed trees being converted to mulch.

The University of California, Merced is planning to construct a $7.5 million stem cell instrumentation foundry on its campus at Castle Airport in Atwater, Calif.  Supported by $4.36 million in funding from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the 8,000-sf facility will enable the creation of devices for single-cell analyses.

The University of Prince Edward Island’s Atlantic Veterinary College opened its $20 million Research Complex in Charlottetown in July of 2008. The 5,300-sm building will house the Centre for Bioactive Valuation, the Centre for Comparative Biomedical Research, and the Lobster Science Centre. Providing 1,100 sm of additional research laboratories and a $3 million CL3 (containment level 3) facility, the project is part of $45 million in infrastructure improvements planned and under way at the veterinary college.

Ark Therapeutics Group opened a $19.1 million GMP-3 manufacturing facility in Kuopio, Finland, in July of 2008. The commercial scale production plant is connected to Ark's existing laboratory suites and will manufacture gene-based medicines. The BSL-2 facility features a 547-sm cleanroom with HEPA air filtration. The duration of construction for the project was three years.