Projects awarded

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's new $70 million Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies will house 60 faculty members and more than 300 researchers and graduate students when it is completed in 2004. The Troy, N.Y., university has commissioned a joint venture of Burt Hill Kosar Rittelmann, Butler, Pa., and Bohlin Cywinski Jackson of Pittsburgh to design the 218,000-sq.-ft. building. St. Louis-based McCarthy is the GC.

The Orlando office of VOA Associates Inc. is partnering with Gibbs Construction of New Orleans under a design/build contract to convert a five-story, 81,300-sq.-ft. barracks building at Fort Polk, La., into a U.S. $10.4 million Army headquarters, to be completed by early 2004.

W.E. O'Neil Construction Co. of Arizona will construct a vacation ownership project in Scottsdale's 730-acre Kierland master-planned community. The development, designed by Phoenix-based DFD CornoyerHedrick Architecture, includes a four-story clubhouse.

A 10,000-sq.-ft. parish center and a 30,000-sq.-ft education center are under construction at St. Bede the Venerable Catholic Church in La CanadaFlintridge, Calif. Architect is McLaughlin/TDM Associates., Los Angeles, with Matt Construction of Santa Fe Springs, Calif., as GC.

A 50-story office building to be built in Chicago by developer John Buck Co. will incorporate a novel feature: The underside of a ramp leading to parking levels on the lower floors will be exposed in the lobby as it steps upward. The 111 S. Wacker tower was designed by Chicago-based architect Lohan Caprile Goettsch. Bovis Lend Lease is the general contractor. Accounting firm Deloitte & Touche helped to initiate the project by agreeing to occupy 43% of the 975,000-sq.-ft. structure. Completion is scheduled for mid-2005.