Industry News

Western Michigan University’s new College of Engineering and Applied Sciences Research Building has been designed and engineered by HarleyEllis of Southfield, Mich., in collaboration with design consultant Rossetti Architects of Birmingham, Mich. It houses teaching, lab, and support spaces for the College’s six departments. The $56-million, 350,000-sf facility is situated within the University’s newly developed Business-Technology Research Park in Kalamazoo. The building is designed with three wings radiating from a central hub that houses lecture halls and common areas.

Investigen, an Alameda, Calif.-based biotechnology company, plans to build a 27,000-sf facility on a 1.8-acre site at the North Shore Business Park in Hercules. Investigen expects to occupy 10,000 sf of the structure, subleasing the remaining 17,000 sf.

The Organization of American States plans to renovate its General Secretariat building in Washington, where operations will be consolidated onto six floors and a lower level; three remaining floors will be leased. OAS selected the architectural firm Group Goetz and the engineering firm Joseph Loring Inc. to work on the project.

The Institute for International Economics will soon move to a new 25,000-sf headquarters in Washington. The building was designed by New York-based Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates and built over 14 months by Sigal Construction. The developer of the project is Kaempfer. The Institute is a private, non-profit research organizaiton.

Telecom giant WorldCom Inc., based in Clinton, Miss., opened a new 110,000-sf data center in Billerica in October 2001. The facility offers security, climate-control, and power-supply features, as well as on-site tech support, bandwidth options, performance reporting, and access to WorldCom’s global Internet protocol network. WorldCom’s long-term goal is to open approximately 70 data centers around the world that offer the company’s hosting and Internet-services business.