Industry News

General Motors has awarded a team comprised of Kaplan McLaughlin Diaz Architects, Ove Arup and Partners (engineering), and Hargreaves Associates (landscape) to remodel their U.S. car and truck design headquarters where GM will consolidate its U.S. design staff. The project will involve demolition, renovation and new construction, resulting in a total of nine million sf.

University of California, San Francisco, broke ground in October 1999 on a $1.5 billion biotechnology campus at a 303-acre site in Mission Bay, where Stanford University plans to break ground in 2000 on its own $200 million, 225,000-sf Clark Center for Biomedical Engineering-Mission Bay.

Cree Research Inc. is expanding its LED manufacturing capacity with the construction of a 125,000-sf facility slated for completion in late 2000. The company recently completed a 42,000-sf production and administration addition.

Avenir plans to build a $2.5 million, 23,000-sf software development facility on a 2.5 acre site in Prince William County industrial park called Innovation@Prince William. The information technology company, based in New York, plans to open the new facility in April 2001.

Virginia Tech may receive $12 million in funding from the proposed state budget to build a biomedical center and establish a biotech research center. The University of Virginia is also targeted in the proposed budget for $2.5 million to convert an abandoned hospital to a technology center at its Wise Campus.