Industry News

Sandia/California National Laboratories plans to begin construction on the Distributed Information Systems Laboratory in April 2002. The $35.5-million, 70,400-sf R&D facility will house 130 scientists from a variety of fields collaborating on improving nuclear weapons monitoring and testing, which is carried out by computer simulations. Dekker/Perich/Sabatini of Albuquerque, N.M., was awarded the $1,562,000 design contract for the project.

Merix Bioscience Inc. will relocate in summer 2001 from an incubator at Becton Dickinson in Research Triangle Park, N.C., to a 20,000-sf Durham facility, formerly owned by Rhone Poulenc Rorer. Merix plans to conduct clinical trials of its new cancer vaccine at the facility.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology plans to break ground in Cambridge on the $350-million McGovern Institute for Brain Research later in 2001. Other area institutions with similar facilities include McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., which will open a $10-million brain research wing, and the University of Massachusetts Medical Center's newly-opened $12-million Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute located at Worcester State Hospital in Worcester.

Gannett will relocate approximately 1,800 employees from Arlington, Va., to a new 800,000-sf facility under construction at a 25-acre site in Tysons Corner. Approximately 75 employees of Gannett News Service and USA Today who cover federal government news will occupy 20,000 sf in a former Greyhound Bus terminal in Washington.

Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. plans to break ground in spring 2001 on a new 195,000-sf eight-story headquarters building and parking garage at The Woodlands. The eight-acre site will accommodate approximately 600 employees, most relocating from Chevron's Tower facility in Houston. Completion of the project is scheduled for fall of 2002.