Industry News

Shell Shared Services Asia-BV has completed construction of its business operations center in Makati City, Philippines. The 35,200-sf facility was designed by Barone Design Group to support key internal business and customer service functions and will accommodate 288 workspaces. The facility is located on two floors in the RCBC Plaza.

Kohl's Corp. is planning to enlarge its existing 530,000-sf Menomonee Falls, Wis., headquarters facility with a 350,000-sf expansion. The project will add over 1,000 new jobs to the 1,500 workers that the company currently employs at the site. Three million dollars in state tax credits will help fund the expansion.

Microsoft Corp. is planning to expand its existing 8 million-sf headquarters campus in Redmond, Wash., by approximately 2 million sf over the next ten to twenty years. The expansion will accommodate up to 12,000 additional workers. The first facility in the development plan is slated for occupancy by 2007.

Nielsen Media Research (NMR), a provider of television audience measurement and monitoring services, has completed its new $71.5 million, 39-acre corporate campus in Oldsmar, Fla. The 475,000-sf Phase I campus consists of five interconnected buildings which include training rooms, conference facilities, and a 4,000-sf employee cafeteria that can accommodate over 330 people. The project features a four-story, 100,000-sf data center and central plant with a 25,000-sf computer room.

FedEx Ground will construct a 247,000-sf distribution center on 75 acres in Kennesaw, Ga. Tripling the size of the current FedEx Ground terminal in Marietta (which it will replace), the facility will feature high technology materials handling systems and will be capable of processing 15,000 packages per hour when it opens in summer of 2006. In 2010 the facility is expected to be converted to a 322,000-sf hub able to sort 30,000 packages per hour.