The $20-million, 50,000-sq.-ft. (4,645-sq.-m.) expansion of the Sara Lee Bakery Division bagel plant in Greenville, S.C., is well on the way to completion. The new wing will enable the company to hire 95 more people as it ramps up production of pizza dough in addition to the bagels it's been making there since 1984. Kevin Dollhopf, vice president of real estate for Sara Lee Bakery Group, is an IAMC member.

With the "verbund" integrated production system as its mantra, BASF Corp. is looking for co-locators at its Ludwigshafen corporate hub in Germany. And with its 1,242 miles (2,000 km.) of pipes and 124 miles (200 km.) of rail, the site is promoting itself as the ideal place for sharing.

BASF and Siemens executives are joined by government officials to break ground on a jointly developed heat and power plant, one of several partnering activities being pursued by the German chemical giant.

        "We are keen to forge long-term relationships on-site with customers and co-locaters who reinforce and enhance our integrated production system," says Dr. Michael Christill, head of co-location and marketing management. "We offer these companies the opportunity to set up on a site equipped for the future with a reliable partner and all the advantages of BASF's integrated system with its unmatched diversity of chemical products and infrastructures, high availability and optimum cost structures."
        Partnership is at the core of a combined heat and power plant the company has embarked upon with the power generation division of Siemens.
        The power plant will supply 440 megawatts of electricity and 650 metric tons of steam per hour to BASF's Ludwigshafen production facilities starting at the end of 2005. BASF is investing US$279 million in the construction of the power plant and its integration into the site's energy infrastructure. But independent power generation isn't the only benefit.
        "From 2006 on, the new plant will lower the amount of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide we emit by 500,000 metric tons per year," said Dr. Walter Seufert, President Environment, Safety & Energy competence center, BASF.
        In further partnering news, BASF's IT Services division has teamed with AK Engineering Services to develop a centralized maintenance planning solution called SAP-PAS, which provides a single, company-wide view of all planning activities for maintenance tasks, shutdowns and projects across both single and multiple plant locations. The effort is focused on the European process industry.
        Bill Pearson, an IAMC director, is director of real estate for BASF, wor king out of its Mt. Olive, N.J. offices.

These two facilities near LAX are just two of the 37 industrial buildings purchased for $481 million by AMB Property Corp. near seven major U.S. airports.

AMB Property Corp. has agreed to pay $481 million to acquire 3.4 million sq. ft. (315,860 sq. m.) of industrial space near seven major U.S. airports from International Airport Centers. Thirty-seven freight buildings are involved in the transaction, located adjacent to airports in Boston, Charlotte, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Seattle. At the same time, AMB is forming a joint venture with the selling entity to pursue further airport-centric development and management opportunities in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston and Newark. Hamid R. Moghadam, AMB's chairman and CEO, says the facilities are all in supply-constrained submarkets within 1.5 miles (2.4 km.) of the airports, and exemplify the kind of high-throughput distribution facilities the company is focused on developing. The purchased portfolio contains more than 200 tenants, most of them in the logistics and freight forwarding sector.
        In an unrelated October development, Eugene F. Reilly rejoined AMB as executive vice president, North American Development, working from the Boston office. Reilly originally went to work for AMB in 1985, leaving to work with Cabot Partners in 1992. Neal Hesler, vice president of AM B Property, is an IAMC member.