Research and Development

Advancing California's Emerging Technologies (ACET) may team up with Catellus Development to create ACET's new home on 3.3 acres of the 213-acre former U.S. Naval Air Station Fleet Industrial Center. Originally a bioscience incubator, ACET has expanded its focus to include technology and energy applications. Currently operating from 8,800 sf of smaller Alameda Naval Air station labs, the ACET is seeking a $64-million grant to cover land, design and building costs for the new facility.

Delta Search Labs may sign a lease for a 50,000 sf facility in Cambridge's Kendall Square, adjacent to its present 15,000-sf basement location. Delta's current operations include office space, a supercomputer, and a visualization cave.  Over the next three years Delta plans to develop a $300-million collaborative supercomputer laboratory including wind tunnel, robotic, photonic, and prototype lab facilities in the new building. The lab will be staffed with experts and available for research to firms in a variety of industries.

The Environmental Protection Agency's new 1.2 million-sf campus will be ready for occupancy in summer 2002. The largest facility ever built for the EPA, the campus can house 2,200 employees and 10,000 research animals, and will include 400 individual labs, a cafeteria, a conference center and a child-care center.  The National Computer Center, which contains the agency's nationwide data, has already moved to the new headquarters.

The 444,000-sf Boston Tech Center is being retrofitted as a lab building by Cabot, Cabot & Forbes of New England. Originally designed as a telecommunications hotel, the facility will finish construction as a shell biomedical building and is projected to become a hub for lab companies. The three-story building will house two levels of ground-floor parking to accommodate 650 vehicles. A 40,000-sf glass atrium will be located on the second and third floors.

Gaithersburg, Md.-based Avalon Pharmaceuticals is seeking a 44,000- to 55,000-sf Montgomery County facility to house its R&D and administrative departments. Programming and design has begun for the planned analytical and organic chemistry laboratories for drug discovery. The facility may be pre-existing or a building that can be retrofitted or built-out.

Northrop Grumman, based in Los Angeles, is expanding its operations in Maryland near the Baltimore/Washington International Airport. A new 100,000-sf facility will be built to consolidate its regional operations and to provide swing space while the company makes final expansion plans--possibly as much as 15,000 sf--for northern Rockville.

The University of California San Diego (UCSD) has awarded the San Diego office of McCarthy Building Cos. a $42.4-million contract to build a new School of Medicine research facility. McCarthy, based in Newport Beach, Calif., began construction in February on the 146,382-sf, four-story facility. The project is slated for completion by February of 2004. UCSD’s 110,000-sf Powell-Focht Bioengineering Building is also being built by McCarthy.

The California Department of Justice has opened a sophisticated new $18-million, 68,000-sf crime lab at Point Richmond to help identify suspects through their DNA for previously unsolved crimes. Housed at the new lab are 141 scientists, the Cal DNA Data Bank, the Missing Persons DNA program, and the Cold Hit program, which compares crime scene evidence with the DNA of known qualifying offenders to identify suspects in unsolved crimes. The lab’s database of 210,000 DNA samples is the country’s largest.

The International Genomics Consortium (IGC), a non-profit medical research organization, plans to decide the location of its administrative headquarters in summer 2002. Among states under consideration are Arizona, Texas, Maryland, and Georgia. The genomics consortium will house research labs, administrative offices and a center coordinating off-site research. The IGC utilizes data from the Human Genome Project to search for cures for disease.

South Texas Medical Center has planned $136 million in capital projects for the current year, with projects totalling $165 million planned for the next five years. Ground was broken on the Children's Cancer Research Center, a $50-million facility providing space for up to 18 principal researchers and their staff. The Children's Cancer Center is part of a $67-million development at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, which will also include an academic administration and student services facility.

Defense contractor Raytheon is considering the sale of its Lexington, Mass. headquarters due to the 41-year-old facility's expensive operating costs. Raytheon plans to decide by year-end whether to seek another Boston area location or to upgrade its existing headquarters, which include the commercial electronics main office, a research lab, and two buildings housing corporate staff.

Pasadena, Calif.-based Alexandria Real Estate is developing 50,000 sf in Cambridge as speculative, generic lab space. Built out to between 80 percent and 100 percent completion, 790 Memorial Drive will facilitate quick move-in of early-stage life science companies. The project site is being developed for Alexandria by Spaulding & Sly of Boston and is located behind Polaroid Corp.'s headquarters.

The Alameda Center for Environmental Technologies (ACET) is seeking U.S. Department of Commerce approval and funding for a $6-million expansion of its facilities at the former Alameda Naval Air Station. The independent incubator was founded in the early 1990's by CSU-Hayward and the U.S. Department of Commerce and currently provides below-market rents for 15,000 sf of chemistry labs and meeting facilities. ACET plans to expand its lab space from 8,800 sf to over 30,000 sf, quadrupling its lab facilities over the next two years. 

The Harvard Institutes of Medicine in collaboration with Lyme Properties LLC is proposing the construction of the Blackfan Research Center—a  400,000-sf biomedical research facility for academic research institutions in Boston’s Longwood Medical Area. The 18-story structure would accommodate 280,000 sf of lab space for research and 120,000 sf of office space, and provide below-ground parking for 300 vehicles. Pending permit approvals by the end of 2002, Lyme hopes to begin construction by mid-2003, with completion in 2005.

Food Safety Net Services Ltd. of San Antonio has purchased 10 acres in Grand Prairie, Texas, as the site of a food-testing lab to be relocated form Richardson, Texas. With construction to begin in 60 to 90 days, completion is slated for October, 2002. Fort Worth-based Dobbins & Crow Architects was selected to design the 12,000-sf lab, which is a significant expansion from Food Safety Net's 2,000 sf in Richardson.