Industry News

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.

The University of Central Florida’s Wayne Densch Sports Center has recently been completed by Clancy & Theys Construction in Orlando, Fla. The 44,000-sf training facility, a one-story building modeled after an early 1920’s field house, features a sports medical center and strength and conditioning room accessible to all UCF student athletes. The center also houses offices for UCF’s football team.

The Veterinary Referral and Emergency Center of South Texas, a 3.4-million veterinary medical facility, will begin construction in North San Antonio by November 2003. Slated for completion in January 2005, the 18,500-sf center will house animal medicine specialties including oncology, radiology, internal medicine, dermatology, physical therapy, surgery, and ophthalmology. The facility will also house a 24-hour emergency department. The project architect is Marmon Mok with Metropolitan Contracting Co. as general contractor.     

Sibley Memorial Hospital recently completed a new decontamination facility at its Washington, D.C. location. In the event of a bioterrorist attack, the unit’s five showers and two dedicated rinse areas can accommodate up to fifty people per hour and a total of seven people at one time. The decontamination facility is located just outside Sibley’s emergency department.