Industry News

CyberPlex @ Dulles, a new $72 million, 400,000-sf data center, is expected to break ground in April 2001 on a 29-acre site in Loudoun County. Completion of the project is anticipated by late fall. The developer is DataCentersNow, a subsidiary of Beco Management based in Rockville, Md. The company has already built one facility in Sterling -- the 55,000-sf CyberFortress I -- and is building CyberFortress II, a 110,000-sf data center, in Manassas, Va.

J. David Gladstone Institutes, a nonprofit medical research center based in San Francisco, plans to expand at Mission Bay with a 180,000-sf biotech research park. The Institutes, whose operations are currently scattered in offices and labs at the campus of the University of California San Francisco, plans to increase its staff of researchers from 260 to 520 by the end of 2010. The new facility will cost $100 million, including the cost of the approximately five-acre site the Institutes plans to purchase. NBBJ Architects is designing the building.

BioStratum has worked with Kansas City-based Clark, Richardson & Biskup Consulting Engineers (CRB) in the development of process descriptions, process flow diagrams, process analysis, and cell culture scale-up options for BioStratum’s early phase development recombinant proteins that will be expressed in cell culture. CRB also provided an economic analysis of production options and a cost of goods analysis, as well as engineering services for BioStratum’s 35,000-sf lab and administration facility under construction in the Maplewood Building at Creekstone Park.

Fujitsu Laboratories plans to work with its subsidiary, Fujitsu Laboratories America, in Sunnyvale, Calif., and the University of Maryland in College Park, to create a $3.5-million research institute devoted to advanced computer technology. Beginning in April 2001, the institute will study bioinformatics, network security, wireless computing, and the impact of pervasive computing. Fujitsu anticipates a $10-million budget and a staff of 40 by 2004.

Covance Laboratories will relocate its immunochemistry group from Vienna, Va., to a new laboratory under development at the Avion Tech Center III Park in Chantilly. Developer of the project is Biotech Services Group, the subsidiary of Scheer Partners that focuses on life science and biotech facilities. The new building will provide R&D labs and walk-in cold rooms in a 24,000-sf single-story structure.