Industry News

Pasadena, Calif.-based Alexandria Real Estate is developing 50,000 sf in Cambridge as speculative, generic lab space. Built out to between 80 percent and 100 percent completion, 790 Memorial Drive will facilitate quick move-in of early-stage life science companies. The project site is being developed for Alexandria by Spaulding & Sly of Boston and is located behind Polaroid Corp.'s headquarters.

Tokyo Electron America is in the early planning stages for a $50-million, 40,000-sf 300-millimeter process integration center. The R&D facility will focus on developing tools for 300-mm chip manufacturing. Construction is slated to begin within two years at a 32-acre site near the company’s current operations in Southeast Austin. The semiconductor equipment supplier is a subsidiary of Tokyo Electron Ltd. based in Japan.

Verizon has awarded a program management contract to Syska Hennessy Group to design and build a fuel cell facility as the primary electrical power source at their 332,000-sf Garden City call-routing center. Pending permit approvals, Verizon plans to start installation of seven fuel cells manufactured by UTC Fuel Cells, a unit of United Technologies Corp. The system  is expected to be fully operational in 2004 and will operate in parallel with four new natural-gas powered engine generators, totaling more than 4 megawatts of generating capacity.

The Robert F. Lucey Center for Technology and Training's dedication ceremony was recently celebrated at Dean College in Franklin. Created to provide regional employers with technology training solutions, the Center was designed by Cambridge-based Bruner Cott & Associates. 

Austin's first biotech incubator, Biowalk LLC, plans to lease 17,000 sf of office and lab space. Biowalk's goal is to coordinate bioscience startups with services, infrastructure and funding, as well as generating student interest in science. A March 2002 opening is planned.