Industry News

Weslaco Hospital recently broke ground on a new 40,000-sf Conference Center at Knapp Medical Center in Weslaco. Constructed by contractor McCarthy, the $4.8-million project will house a 4,800-sf multipurpose meeting room seating 200, three classrooms seating 25, a computer lab, and Education Department offices. The facility will also house the Diabetes Center, Accreditation, Quality Management, and the Hospital Information Services departments. Designed by PageSoutherlandPage of Houston, the project is slated for completion in February 2004.

The Historical Society of Washington, D.C. has completed the $24-million renovation of the 101-year-old Carnegie Library building to create the City Museum. The facility opened as a 60,000-sf museum on May 15, 2003. The renovation project included a 150-seat theater, extra museum space and offices for the historical society, as well as updated HVAC, wiring, and adaptations for technology. The City Museum now accommodates 12,000 sf of exhibit galleries, an archeology lab, an education center, a public research library, a café, and a museum store.

Wyeth Vaccines is planning to lease approximately 82,000 sf of flex space in the Keystone Office and Industrial Park in Durham, N.C. The research laboratory is expected to open in 2003 and will house up to 100 researchers. Wyeth is continuing to develop its 472,000-sf Sanford campus, where it completed a 115,000-sf manufacturing expansion in December 2002. A 50,000-sf addition to the expansion is currently under way. Wyeth Vaccines is a business unit of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, a division of Madison, N.J.-based Wyeth.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has selected the New England Division of Skanska USA Building as program manager for the redevelopment of the Quissett Campus in Woods Hole, Mass. The project includes a new biogeochemistry laboratory building, a marine research laboratory facility, upgrades to the campus central plant, and alterations to the process and septic systems for the campus. The laboratory buildings are scheduled to begin construction in late 2003, pending regulatory approval.

The D.C. Department of Health’s Emergency Health and Medical Services Administration is planning a mobile medical unit to provide surge capacity including triage, decontamination, and vaccination in the event of a crisis. The mobile facility will be comprised of two core parts. A hard shell component, similar to a trailer, will carry eight critical care beds and be hauled by an 18-wheel truck. A soft-shell component that can be pulled by a pickup truck will fold out into four individual climate-controlled tents housing eight to ten beds each.