Industry News

The Triangle Biotechnology Center, a new 17,000-sf laboratory facility, is being developed in Durham by Andrew Rothschild. The wet lab space, housed in the historic Clark & Sorrel Building, will contain suites for offices and labs as small as 1,600 sf.

Ocular Networks has contracted with Liminality of Washington to design a new expanded headquarters in Reston, Va. The facility will provide additional space for the Ocular's growing engineering and manufacturing organizations.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology has contracted Parsons Brinckerhoff as project manager for a $50 million utilities upgrade. The Cambridge-based firm will also provide resident engineering and inspection services.

Reston Hospital Center is planning a three story addition, expanding the facility by 100,000 sf. Housing the maternity ward as well as administrative and community education departments, the addition will cost approximately $21.5 million. A 5,000-sf expansion of the special procedures area and a new 439-space parking garage will also begin construction in March. State approval is pending on another addition of 2 floors to the new maternity unit, increasing the bed space by 60 and providing emergency and radiology facilities.

Japan-based Toyota Motor Corp. is considering sites in Georgia, Tennessee, or Alabama for a plant manufacturing 4.7-liter V8 gasoline engines. To be completed by 2004, the plant will produce 100,000 to 150,000 new engines per year and cost approximately $266 million.