Industry News

The University of California, San Diego will complete the expansion and renovation of the $16-million Biomedical Library in La Jolla in spring of 2006. McCarthy Building Companies is serving as construction manager and general contractor for the project, which entails the addition of 39,000 sf to the existing library, as well as renovation of the attached structure. Built in 1969 to serve 800 users, the library will nearly double in size so that services can be provided to more than 4,000 students, faculty, and visitors.

The University of California, Davis is constructing two veterinary medical facilities, both slated for completion by year-end 2006. Designed by SRG Partnership of Portland, Ore., the $77-million Veterinary Medical Building 3A features office, teaching, and clinical laboratory space, a research tower, overhead cranes for large animal transport, and a necropsy room with a digester. The 164,000-sf facility is being built to meet strict biosafety sterilization code requirements and vibration criteria.

Hitachi Transport System Ltd,, a subsidiary of consumer electronics maker Hitachi, has selected global facilities and services provider ProLogis of Denver to construct a 569,000-sf distribution center in Osaka, Japan. The five story facility, dubbed the ProLogis Parc Maishima II, is slated for completion in the second half of 2006.

Johns Hopkins will begin construction in 2006 on a $275.5-million children's tower in Baltimore, Md. Part of a new clinical facility, the 12-story, 205-bed tower will house a pediatric trauma center, ten operating rooms, psychiatry, and outpatient cancer care. Funding for the facility will come in part from a $100-million donation recently received by Johns Hopkins. Slated for completion in summer of 2009, the project is currently eight months behind schedule and $190-million over budget due to high construction material costs.

The University of California, Davis (U.C. Davis) dedicated the $20-million Center for Biophotonics Science and Technology on January 30, 2006. Located in the Oak Park Research Building in Sacramento, Calif., the 40,000-sf facility will accommodate 100 researchers from U.C. Davis and other partner institutions including U.C. Berkeley, U.C. San Francisco, Stanford University, Mills College, and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.