Industry News

M.D. Anderson Cancer Center has topped out its new $221.9-million George and Cynthia Mitchell Basic Sciences Research Building. Slated for completion and initial occupancy in November, the 18-story, 500,000-sf facility is expected to be fully operational in June 2004. Located in Houston's Texas Medical Center, the building will house six floors of research laboratories, an auditorium, conference facilities, small-animal vivariums, and classrooms for the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston.

Southwest Regional Cancer Center will relocate its main clinic to 31,000 sf on one and a half floors of the new Midtown Medical Office building, now under construction in central Austin. The relocation will enable the center to double the size of its primary clinic which provides treatment for hematology and oncology patients. Ground was broken on the 82,000-sf Class A office building and 524-space parking garage late last year. The $22-million complex is expected to open in 2004. The developer for the project is HTH Capital Ltd.

The Department of Defense will occupy a 150,000-sf facility in Columbia's Oak Ridge Industrial Park in Howard County. The building houses 50,000-sf of laboratory space and was the former North American headquarters of Bookham Technology.

Caritas Norwood Hospital's 12,000-sf outpatient radiation oncology expansion is being designed by TRO/The Ritchie Organization of Newton, Mass. Slated for completion in April 2003, the one-level addition will connect to the existing facility via a new main vestibule.

The 218,000-sf Medimmune Project is under construction in Gaithersburg. Construction began on the first $85-million phase in March 2002; completion is expected in June 2003 excluding tenant fit-outs and labs. Medimmune is the primary tenant for the facility, which is being developed by Quadrangle Development.