Industry News

Thomas Jefferson University’s planned $140-million Kimmel Cancer Center, a cancer treatment and research center, will be postponed for one year as the university raises funds for the project and searches for a solution to a potentially critical parking situation envisioned when a 400-car parking garage is demolished to make way for the new center.  The planned 380,000-sf structure, designed by the architectural firm of Perkins & Will of Chicago, will reach 20 stories and include underground parking spaces for 200 cars.

Boston University (BU) has expanded its on-campus housing with apartment-style suites that will accommodate 800 students. The new building is the first at the university's Student Village complex, which is located on 10 acres at the former Commonwealth Armory site. BU provides campus housing for over 10,000 students.

U.S. Department of Interior's Fish & Wildlife Service has retained HarleyEllis of Southfield, Mich., to provide architectural and engineering design services for the Clark R. Bavin National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory expansion in Ashland. The 48,000-sf project encompasses the analysis and renovation of 23,000-sf of existing facility and the design of 25,000 sf of expansion. The expanded facility will house forensics labs, a firing range, administration, and conference space.

Merial has plans to relocate and consolidate its five major U.S. animal health operations to several sites in Georgia. A suburb of Atlanta will be selected for the company's North American headquarters, where 400 employees will be housed. The company's Athens, Ga., manufacturing and research facility will accommodate an additional 80 relocated R&D employees. The University of Georgia will be the site of a planned pilot vaccine development facility, where Merial would manufacture both animal and human vaccines.

Siebel Systems plans to relocate 750 administrative personnel to the 205,000-sf Concar project planned by Wilson/Equity Office in San Mateo. Construction is scheduled to begin in early 2001, with move-in anticipated 18 months later. The fast-growing software company is in the process of occupying its new 450,000-sf headquarters at the Bridgepointe development 10 minutes' drive from the Concar site. Bridgepointe is a Sobrato Development project.