Industry News

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, has begun a $163 million renovation and expansion of the hospitals that merged in 1996. The four-year project has begun with the renovation of 60 post partum rooms to accommodate private showers, VCRs, a sleep chair and refrigerator, all of which is scheduled for completion by the end of summer 2000.

Wheelock College, a 112-year-old private liberal arts college, is doing a complete $20 million renovation of its classroom building and adding both classroom and faculty office space to its activities building. For further expansion, the college also will buy Hebrew College's nearby Brookline campus, which includes a small classroom facility and a Guilded Age mansion. Hebrew College will relocate to a new $26 million, seven-acre campus currently under construction in Newton, Mass., next fall.

Bentley College will renovate Kresge Hall--a five-story, 54 unit dormitory. Bentley has retained Needham, Mass.-based Bowdoin Construction Corp. to handle the project, which will cosmetically upgrade all dorm rooms and significantly enhance space usage.

St. Olaf College's new 190,000-sf facility--the Buntrock Commons Campus Center--has completed the design phase. The architect is Sasaki Associates Inc., based in Watertown, Mass.

The National Fire and Protection Agency (NFPA) has partnered with Western Fire Chiefs Association (WFCA) and the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO) to build a set of Consensus Codes--a new set of codes for the built environment. Their goal is to provide safety officials with a new consistent and compatible set of codes by the year 2003. As part of the Consensus Code project NFPA also plans to devise a NFPA Building Code.