Industry News

The Dallas Center for the Performing Arts and architects Foster and Partners of London and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture of Rotterdam and New York have completed the master plan for a new Dallas arts center. The center will house three performance venues, the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, an 800-seat multiform theater, and the 5,000-seat Annette Strauss Artist Square, with an expanded seating capacity of up to 10,000. Construction on the $250-million center is expected to begin in 2004 with completion in late 2007 or early 2008.  

Union College is creating housing for 230 students by renovating an inn recently purchased by the liberal arts and engineering college in Schenectady, N.Y. Funded by an issue of $15-million in bonds, the renovation will include repairs to the exterior, roof, fire protection, and HVAC. A new study area, entryway, fitness center, and meeting rooms will be constructed. The renovation is slated for completion in fall 2004.

Ring Power Corp. has selected Elkins Constructors to build its 400,000-sf Jacksonville, Fla., headquarters at World Commerce Center, a 1,000-acre development in St. Johns County. Ring Power, one of the largest full-line Caterpillar dealers in the Southeast, will house its 800 employees in the new facility. Construction is expected to begin by the end of September 2003.

Baylor University has completed its $13.2 million multi-use facility that will serve as the new home for the university’s Information Technology Services Group. Sited on Baylor’s Dallas campus, the 400,000-sf design/build project houses office and restaurant space as well as structured parking for 1,195 cars. The contractor for the project was McCarthy, who also recently broke ground on a new 1,170-car, 360,000-sf design/build parking structure on Baylor’s Waco campus. Budgeted at $9.6 million, the facility will be completed in summer 2004.

MetroSafe Emergency Communications System is planning a centralized communications center in Louisville, Ky. Linking dispatchers for fire, police, EMS and other first responders, the center would merge nine existing Louisville dispatch centers into a central dispatch communicating with all emergency workers in the metro area. The system is expected to cost between $40 and $60 million.