Port St. Lucie’s next biotech institute is one step closer to reality.

Oregon Health & Science University’s Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute signed a deal this month to design and build its new $30 million laboratory in the Tradition development west of Interstate 95.

The institute tapped Baltimore-based Whiting Turner Contracting Co. to oversee construction of the 105,000 square feet of laboratories and offices. The building is on target to be completed in May 2011, said Andrew Favata, vice president for Tradition’s developer, Core Communities LLC.

VGTI Florida, as the local campus has been dubbed, will be built on eight acres at Core Communities’ Florida Center for Innovation at Tradition, a fledgling research park that’s now home to another biotech outfit, the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies. (more…)

The Baehrs — Derek, Kellyanne and their two young daughters are five months behind on their mortgage payments. They sometimes eat at a soup kitchen and shop at a food pantry. They expect to lose their three-bedroom suburban house before the end of the school year.
“This is just awful, and I know that we are not the only ones going through this,’’ says Kellyanne, 37, an accounting clerk. Derek, 40, is disabled. “We used to try to go day by day. Now we are just trying to get to the end of each day.’’

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By EVE SAMPLES
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
PORT ST. LUCIE — One of the world’s leading HIV-vaccine development teams is moving from Montreal to Port St. Lucie.

Rafick-Pierre Sékaly of the University of Montreal and his group of more than 30 scientists will relocate to the city in the next few months to work at VGTI Florida, the East Coast branch of Oregon Health & Science University’s Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute, the institute announced today.

VGTI accepted $60 million in state incentives last year to open a campus in Port St. Lucie.
Construction of VGTI’s 105,000-square-foot facility is expected to start in the coming months. Meanwhile, Sékaly and his team will work from the third floor of the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies, which just moved into its new building at the Tradition development. (more…)

TRADITION — Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies is in the process of moving to the $40 million complex in Tradition this week and should be up and running fully in February.

Employees have boxed items and movers are transporting things to the Port St. Lucie location from Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Fort Pierce, where they have been working since May 2007.

Some employees will start work in the new building early next week. Others will continue in Fort Pierce until February. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — Moving day is getting closer for Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies.

The last checklist items are being completed as the research institute prepares for a phased move from their temporary home at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Fort Pierce to the new $40 million complex in Tradition in early January.

While Torrey Pines administrators are expected to occupy their offices when the doors open, the scientists may wait another month or two before settling into the new lab space.

“In reality there is work going on that would create dust and noise and it’s easier to time our move so ongoing (chemistry and molecular biology) experiments are not disrupted,” said Torrey Pines President Richard Houghten.

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