Industry News

KBI BioPharma, a division of Kinetic Biosystems of Atlanta, will upfit 300,000 sf in four buildings recently purchased in Teer Technical Park in Durham. Formerly occupied by Mitsubishi's semiconductor manufacturing operations, the facility currently houses three cleanrooms ranging in size from 6,906 sf to 25,240 sf. The first of the three planned renovation phases is expected to take nine months and cost $45 million. The lead architect is O'Brien/Atkins Associates of Durham.

BioMerieux, a French diagnostic instruments maker, is expanding its U.S. headquarters in Durham's Teer Technical Park with the lease of an additional 20,000 sf. The space will house research in probe instrument technology. 

Sigma Xi, the international scientific and engineering honor society and publisher of American Scientist magazine, is building a 52,840-sf headquarters facility in Research Triangle Park. The building will house a 200-seat auditorium, exhibit space, conference facilities, a catering kitchen, and office space for Sigma Xi's 44 employees.

MIT has completed construction of the $300-million, 713,000-sf Ray and Maria Stata Center in Cambridge, Mass. Housing flexible research facilities, high-technology classrooms, fitness facilities, an auditorium, a child-care center, and underground parking, the nine-story center will also accommodate the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Laboratory for Information Decision Systems, and the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Occupancy is slated to begin in January 2004.

Providence Hospital in Southfield, Mich., has completed its new 225,000-sf mobile decontamination unit. The mass-rinse center can service up to 75 people an hour and is equipped with eight shower heads inside and four outside. The $150,000 facility consists of three suites in which patients remove clothes, shower, and redress in gowns. The decontamination system was designed by Kohler Mobile Plumbing Systems based in Kohler, Wis.