Industry News

St. Francis Hospital will break ground in October of 2011 on a $110 million expansion in Columbus, Ga. The project includes a four-story, 189,131-sf clinical services building and a four-story, 169,000-sf medical office building. The expansion will provide a total of 230 private rooms, a women's health center, and seven operating rooms. The general contractor is Skanska USA Building. Completion is expected in early 2013.

Slidell Memorial Hospital has awarded KLMK Group the project management contract for a 56,000-sf emergency room and cardiology expansion in Slidell, La. Construction will begin in March 2012 and reach completion in June of 2013. The project will support quicker patient admittance, assessment, and discharge, as well as providing additional private inpatient rooms.

Data Realty has selected ESD (Environmental Systems Design, Inc.), a specialist in mission critical facilities, to design a 50,000-sf data center/collocation facility in South Bend, Indiana. Located within the newly founded Ignition Technology Park, the greenfield facility will feature a modular layout. The sustainably designed center will utilize free cooling, high efficiency UPS modules, and an advanced electrical system. Completion is expected by August of 2012.

The University of Colorado will begin building a $100 million geosciences complex in September of 2012. Located on the East Campus in Boulder, the project will include renovation of the 280,000-sf MacAllister Building to house dry labs, classrooms, and offices, and construction of an 83,708-sf wet lab building. Completion is expected in May of 2014. The complex will provide a new home for the Environmental Studies Department. 

Argonne National Laboratory broke ground on the $34.5 million Advanced Protein Crystallization Facility on August 30, 2011. The 50,000-sf project will support research in structural genomics for the characterization of proteins used in medical therapeutics. Occupancy is expected in 2014.