Industry News

The University of South Alabama has completed the first phase of its $9.3-million Research and Technology Park in Mobile, Ala. The project entailed construction of a 75,000-sf office facility for software and technology company Mentor Graphics Corp. The project team includes KPS Group of Birmingham as architect and Doster Construction Co. as construction manager.

Palo Alto-based Hewlett Packard will invest $1 billion in an existing Singapore factory over the next five years to expand and upgrade its facilities, supporting a new manufacturing line producing top-end servers and printers including the “superdome server”.

Sabre Technical Services, creator of a chloride dioxide gas technology for the elimination of anthrax and other bio-organisms, will establish Bio-One in the 64,000-sf Boca Raton facility that previously housed the National Enquirer. The facility was contaminated by anthrax spores in fall of 2001. Bio-One will decontaminate the space prior to occupancy. Bio-One is a joint venture of Sabre Technical Services and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

The University of Kansas and Union Station are collaborating to develop a 2,000-sf fossil-preparation laboratory at the 68,000-sf Science City. The renovation will include expanded space for educational exhibits and is slated for completion by year-end 2004. University of Kansas paleontologists will work in the lab that will feature the fossils of a camarasaurus dinosaur.

Medtech company AGA Medical will relocate its headquarters from Golden Valley to a 27-acre corporate park recently purchased in Plymouth, Minn. The site, the former home of Qwest’s wireless operations, includes a three-story, 189,000-sf facility that more than quadruples AGA’s current space. AGA expects to expand up to 400,000 sf of office and manufacturing space in the next ten years.