Industry News

The University of California San Diego (UCSD) has awarded the San Diego office of McCarthy Building Cos. a $42.4-million contract to build a new School of Medicine research facility. McCarthy, based in Newport Beach, Calif., began construction in February on the 146,382-sf, four-story facility. The project is slated for completion by February of 2004. UCSD’s 110,000-sf Powell-Focht Bioengineering Building is also being built by McCarthy.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. will invest $350 million in the next two years to convert its Fab 25 processor chip plant in Austin into a flash memory plant. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based chip manufacturer hopes to equip the plant to last through the next two generations of chip technology. Flash memory enables devices to retain memory and information without active power supply to the device.

Chip manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices Inc., based in Sunnyvale, Calif., is seeking 90,000 sf of office space in Austin to house Alchemy Semiconductor, which AMD recently purchased. The facility will be home to Personal Connectivity Solutions, a newly formed AMD division focused on non-PC product devices. Alchemy’s lease on 20,000 sf in Austin expires at the end of April. Alchemy develops and markets microprocessors.

Slough Estates USA is awaiting final approval to build the Britannia East Grand, a 783,533-sf biotech lab campus planned for the site of the former ICI paint factory in South San Francisco. The project, which would take the British firm’s South San Francisco holdings to more than 2.7 million sf, will go before the review board in April, and could break ground by mid-year.

The University of Texas Medical Branch is establishing a Galveston telehealth research center slated to open in late April. The SBC Foundation, part of SBC Communications, awarded the medical complex a $1-million donation. The facility is the first of its kind in the nation.