Industry News

Having received approval from the Boston Redevelopment Authority, Suffolk University will begin building a new 386-bed dormitory adjacent to its Beacon Hill campus in late spring of 2002. 

Caritas Good Samaritan Medical Center has selected RDK Engineers of Andover and Boston to expand and renovate its Brockton hospital. The $10-million, 50,945-sf project will include a two-story, 8,720-sf addition in front of the hospital and extensive renovations to ground and first floor levels of the existing hospital. Completion is anticipated in June 2003.

Siemens Inc. has moved its Enterprise Network Division into 325,000 sf at San Jose's Skyport Plaza. The first phase of the 38-acre mixed use Skyport Plaza development consists of three eight-story buildings, two four-level parking garages providing approximately 1,760 parking spaces, a basketball court and pedestrian walkways. The second phase, a mirror of Phase I's commercial office and parking design, will progress as economic conditions improve.

Industrial biotech company Genencor is planning a 22,000-sf manufacturing facility in one of the following cities: Palo Alto, Calif., Belois, Wis., Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Elkhart, Ind., or Rochester, N.Y. Based in Palo Alto, Genencor currently has 1,300 employees. The new facility will manufacture larger quantities of human therapeutics that Genencor is currently researching for healthcare and pharmaceutical applications.

Glendale-based media/entertainment company DreamWorks SKG is planning to lease over 100,000 sf in Redwood City's Pacific Shores for PDI, the company's Palo Alto-based computer animation division. PDI currently occupies 65,000 sf in three buildings in Palo Alto and employs 300 people. The size of the Pacific Shores location would allow PDI to more than double its workforce. The company has been seeking a Bay Area expansion fit for two years.