Industry News

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.

BAE Systems Mission Solutions has purchased 11.5 acres in Rancho Bernardo where it will add a 210,000-sf multistory building and parking garage to the existing structure at the site. The high tech defense contractor is a unit of BAE Systems North America, based in Rockville, Md., and employs approximately 1400 people in San Diego. Groundbreaking for the new structures is planned for June 2001, with completion of construction by mid-2002.