Battelle to Spend $200M on Upgrades, Expansions of Columbus-Area Facilities

In the midst of a national economy rife with cutbacks and layoffs, research and development concern Battelle is making plans to increase the size of its digs at three locations in the Columbus, Ohio, area. The global nonprofit organization, whose core businesses include health and life sciences, energy and national security, will shell out over $200 million to build, expand and renovate office, laboratory and manufacturing facilities, as well as a day care center. “Business is strong and we’re investing in growing sectors of our business, like bioscience and biomedical research at our West Jefferson location,” a Battelle spokesperson told CPN. West Jefferson will be the site of the largest of the planned real estate projects. A 160,000-square-foot health and life sciences research lab will be constructed at the 1,000-acre campus (pictured). In Columbus, the company’s 50-acre King Avenue location (pictured), situated approximately 15 miles east of the West Jefferson campus, will be home to the 16,000-square-foot Battelle Discovery Center day care and early education building. And in Dublin, where Battelle maintains a 60,000-square-foot production facility within a flex building owned by 3 Points Equities, the company intends to renew and expand its lease. Pending approval from the City of Dublin, Battelle will get 40,000 square feet of additional elbowroom at the property, which sits about 15 miles north of the Columbus site.  “You read about a lot of gloom and doom, but we’re a relatively stable business,” the spokesperson said. “We’ve grown from $1 billion in annual global research to $1.6 billion within the last 10 years, and we usually invest about $100 million in science and technology programs and facilities every year.” Battelle owns more than 2 million square feet of laboratory space around the world.