Industry News

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.

Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente Health Plan is planning to spend $375 million on a new 1.2 million-sf hospital and 870,000-sf medical office building in Santa Clara, doubling Kaiser's current Santa Clara facilities.  A new $7-million emergency department will be added to Kaiser's Santa Teresa Hospital in South San Jose, more than tripling its existing 5,000-sf emergency facilities. A hospital in Redwood City is still in the planning stage.

Kennesaw State University's Coles College of Business opened the Center for Professional Selling last fall after over two years of planning. Funded by $250,000 in corporate commitments, the Center is nearing completion and will include a conference room, state-of-the-art sales labs, and offices for student role-playing. Technologies will include training tools such as digital video cameras to capture practice sales pitches, which could be viewed by prospective employers on the Internet.

Genesys Telecommunication Laboratories Inc. is relocating its 400-employee San Francisco headquarters to the Pacific Plaza in nearby Daly City. The nine-floor, 360,000-sf Pacific Plaza is nearing completion, developed by Summit Mack/Cali Associates. As an anchor tenant, Genesys will occupy 13,000 sf on four floors including the seventh, eighth, and ninth floors. Genesys is a maker of software connecting computers, databases, telephones, and the Internet.