Grading has started on preparing for the construction of General Electric’s new 125,000 sq. ft. advanced manufacturing and research facility at Chapman Westport in Findlay Twp. Evans General Contracting from the Atlanta area is the contractor for the $30 million project, to be know as the Center for Additive Technology Advancement.

GE’s building is here in part because of the research into advanced materials that is happening at Carnegie Mellon. It’s not hard to envision a GE building located in the new north campus at CMU if University President Subra Suresh’s vision for the next phase of expansion comes to life. Last week master developer JLL announced that CMU had engaged it to help bring 450,000 sq. ft. of office, plus hotels and retail to fruition along Forbes Ave. at the Hollow. A day later Dr. Suresh spoke of his vision of several major office buildings as part of the Tepper Quadrangle, which will be anchored by the $110 million Tepper School of Business. Given the success Google has had with its partnership and hiring at CMU, it isn’t hard to imagine similar corporate locations for companies like GE, Amazon or the next tech giant looking at being at the heart of such an innovation corridor. Work on Tepper should begin around the end of 2015.

Through an owner’s rep, a request for developers went out again for a new convention center hotel. Past iterations called for as many as 1,000 rooms and would have run $100 million or more to develop. That cost is likely 25-50% off by this time but the added rooms are aimed at pushing Pittsburgh above the threshold for attracting the largest conventions to town.