Industry News

Florida Children’s Hospital began construction in September of 2007 on the first Disney-themed and branded pediatric hospital in Orlando. Funded in part by a $10-million donation from The Walt Disney Co., the $35-million, 200-bed facility is slated for completion in 2010. The seven-story building will replace the existing Florida Children's Hospital on the site.

Meridian Systems, a provider of enterprise project management software for optimizing capital projects, programs and facilities, announced that a new Aberdeen Group, Inc. research study on enterprise spend for real estate and facilities management is now available as a free download at the Meridian Systems site.

Colorado State University officially broke ground on its new Computer Science building Fort Collins. on Sept. 21, 2007. The four story, 45,000-sf facility will house laboratories for information technology and computer science research. The three laboratories on the ground floor include a student personal computer lab, a Linux lab, and a teaching lab. The facility was designed by Anderson Mason Dale. Project cost including equipment and furniture is $14 million. Occupancy is slated for fall of 2008.

The Department of Agriculture, Region 7, completed construction of bird flu diagnostic laboratories in the Philippines in September of 2007. The Avian Influenza Diagnostic Laboratory in Cebu City, Cagayan de Oro, and Zamboanga will be managed by the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) and will facilitate the detection of the AI-virus and provide immediate testing of both live and dead samples. The new diagnostic labs were funded from a grant from the Japanese Trust Fund and will comply with international biocontainment standards.

The U.S. Senate passed the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs 2008 spending bill in September of 2007. Providing over $963 million for military facility projects in Maryland, the bill will fund a two-stage expansion of the existing U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) laboratory. The completed $1-billion facility will be comprised of 1.1 million sf and will accommodate 1,300 employees. The first phase of the project will reach completion in 2012 with the second phase culminating in 2016.