Industry News

BioReliance opened a new $24 million, $58,000-sf facility in late September 2000 to provide large-scale, viral gene therapy and drug manufacturing services to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. The company will provide bulk manufacturing of the human smallpox vaccine for OraVax, a Cambridge, Mass., biopharmaceutical firm that was recently awarded a $343 million contract for the vaccine by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Telcordia Technologies Inc. has broken ground on a new 231,000-sf office building at Telcordia's Raritan River facility in Piscataway. Kling Lindquist of Philadelphia is providing architectural, engineering, and interior design services, as well as a master plan review for the structure. Bovis Lend Lease is the construction manager on the project. Approximately 1,100 administrative and technical personnel may occupy the three-story corporate facility, which will be connected to adjacent buildings via second-story connector bridges.

Level 3 Communications, based in Broomfield, Colo., has plans for an 816,000-sf data center in Washington D.C. at a site that is presently a paved parking lot. Level 3, which provides a fiber-optic network based on Internet protocol, has previously built data centers ranging from 3,000 sf to 60,000 sf. The firm plans to co-locate other Internet-focused companies at the new facility.

Storage Networks Inc. has begun moving its 600 employees into a new 130,000-sf world headquarters in Waltham that will house a global operations center for the Internet storage company. In addition, the facility provides office space, a test lab, and an executive briefing center to accommodate potential customers, investors, analysts, and the media. The structure, originally built in the 1950s, was completely gutted and renovated, including all new infrastructure. The architectural firm of Margulies & Associates of Boston designed the facility.

Genentech Inc. is in the midst of a $17 million cGMP (current Good Manufacturing Practice) warehouse and administrative facilities expansion and renovation at its Vacaville campus. The new 42,000-sf cGMP Building 3A warehouse, adjacent to the existing manufacturing facility's warehouse, will include 2,000 sf of Class 100 cleanroom space for material sampling. The remaining space will house warehouse specialized material storage, and office space. A 50,000-sf expansion of Building 4A will provide administrative office space and a new computer room.