Industry News

Danbury Hospital has initiated construction on its new Outpatient Diagnostic Building in Danbury, Conn. The total project is valued at $44 million. Skanska USA Building is providing construction management services for the 60,000-sf, three story building as well as a new 366-space parking garage.

Stanford University's Graduate School of Business is planning to break ground on a new campus in Palo Alto, Calif., in 2008. The $275-million, 340,000-sf facility will be named the Knight Management Center. The campus will feature a 450-seat auditorium, classrooms, dining facilities, and offices for faculty and staff. Construction is expected to reach completion in four to five years.

Construction has begun at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom on a new £40 million biomedical research facility known as the Smith Extension. Designed by Wilson Mason and Partners, the 101,800-sf six-story facility will house the faculties of life science and medicine. The building is laid out around a central light well and shared laboratory facilities are located at ground level, including a freezer farm and a histology suite.

The University of Missouri-Columbia and the National Institutes of Health have awarded K&S Associates of St. Louis the $12.6 million contract to construct the new Regional Biocontainment Laboratory (RBL). Located on the east campus with the Veterinary Medicine Complex, the 23,000-gsf BSL-3 facility will contain 9,768 sf of research and support space. The facility will feature a penthouse and full basement for HVAC, mechanical, and electrical systems and equipment.

Edgewood Chemical Biological Center opened a $2 million chemical and biological threat cloud testing facility in December of 2006. Located in Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, the facility features a "vortex chamber" that simulates clouds of hazardous gasses or debris that could be created by an explosion. The facility will enable researchers to study detectors for the monitoring of threat clouds.