Industry News

Life Technologies, recently purchased by Invitrogen of San Diego, will see 400 employees relocated from Rockville's Shadey Grove Life Sciences Center to a new three-building campus on 15 to 20 acres in Frederick, where Invitrogen will centralize its U.S. distribution services. The site provides approximately 175,000 sf of manufacturing, distribution, and some R&D space, and a 50,000-sf warehouse that will be renovated. Plans may include construction of a new facility for expanded R&D services at the site.

Millennium Pharmaceuticals has opened a 200,000-sf addition to its headquarters in University Park, a 2.3 million-sf park in Cambridge. Over the next few years, the biotech company plas to construct an additional 212,000 sf, which will bring Millennium's presence to a total of 673,000 sf at the park.

Georgia State University opened a biotechnology R&D center called CollabTech in November 2000. The incubator, funded partially by the Georgia Research Alliance and with support from the Advanced Technology Development Center, is aimed at providing access to the most advanced equipment for biotechnology start-ups, as well as enabling the university and its students to participate in cutting-edge research and discoveries. The University of Georgia plans to open an agricultural biology research center, called AgTech, in March 2001.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has solicited proposals for a 630,000-sf headquarters site in order to consolidate its Washington, D.C., operations now housed in two locations. Boston Properties, a Boston-based real estate investment trust, was expected to submit a proposal by mid-December 2000 to use one of its properties, currently a parking lot within walking distance of the new Washington Convention Center, as the location for the project.

BudCo. of San Antonio Ltd. has plans for a new headquarters and warehouse facility on a 40-acre site in southwest San Antonio. Scheduled groundbreaking is for mid-January, with completion by October or November 2001. Hollerman Duitsman Architects of Saint Louis designed the facility, which will accommodate 98,000 sf of office space and 190,000 sf of distribution space. The project manager is James Pritchard & Associates; the general contractor is Hooker Contracting Co. Inc. of San Antonio.