Telecommunications

Telcordia Technologies Inc. has broken ground on a new 231,000-sf office building at Telcordia's Raritan River facility in Piscataway. Kling Lindquist of Philadelphia is providing architectural, engineering, and interior design services, as well as a master plan review for the structure. Bovis Lend Lease is the construction manager on the project. Approximately 1,100 administrative and technical personnel may occupy the three-story corporate facility, which will be connected to adjacent buildings via second-story connector bridges.

The Armory will be converted to a telecommunications facility by  FowlerFlanaganTechnologies Partners LLC of Larkspur, Calif. The company has telecommunications facilities in 12 cities, but this is the first in the San Francisco Bay area. The aging, fortress-like structure will provide physical protection for the critical equipment it will house. In addition, the building, which has good infrastructure, is located near Pacific Bell's central office.

Telcordia Technologies Inc. has broken ground on a new 231,000-sf office building at Telcordia's Raritan River facility in Piscataway. Kling Lindquist of Philadelphia is providing architectural, engineering, and interior design services, as well as a master plan review for the structure. Bovis Lend Lease is the construction manager on the project. Approximately 1,100 administrative and technical personnel may occupy the three-story corporate facility, which will be connected to adjacent buildings via second-story connector bridges.

Level 3 Communications, based in Broomfield, Colo., has plans for an 816,000-sf data center in Washington D.C. at a site that is presently a paved parking lot. Level 3, which provides a fiber-optic network based on Internet protocol, has previously built data centers ranging from 3,000 sf to 60,000 sf. The firm plans to co-locate other Internet-focused companies at the new facility.

Acterna, a Germantown telecommunications company, plans to consolidate its 4,000 employees, currently situated at five Germantown locations, at a new 45-acre corporate campus at the Milestone site in Germantown. Current plans include two initial buildings totaling 280,000 sf, with a potential for 700,000 sf at final build-out. The Peterson Cos., based in Fairfax, Va., is developing the property.

The Yamacraw Design Center,  the facility that will house Georgia’s initiative for technology economic development in broadband telecommunications, is being developed in Midtown Atlanta. The building will include institutional and commercial design technology demonstration studios; prototypes of labs for applied R&D; and incubator and industry representative office space for member companies. Lord, Aeck & Sargent of Atlanta is the architect for the project.

Georgia Tech's College of Architecture Center for Rehabilitation Technology (CRT) will create the Information Technology Technical Assistance and Training Center. In a five-year program, the CRT will provide design expertise to major technology manufacturers so that computers and telecommunication technologies may be more easily used by persons with disabilities. The Training Center is the result of a $7.5-million federal grant awarded in September 2000 to Georgia Tech by the U.S. Department of Education's National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research.

IBM has plans to increase its presence in the telecommunications services field with the building of the Network Innovation Laboratories—three labs where several IBM units will work with other telecom companies to research and test new services: wireless solutions, broadband delivery, Internet telephony and data centers. By March 2001, IBM expects to have built one lab in Raleigh, and one each in France and Asia.

Nokia’s three-story, 190,000-sf Product Creation Center in Scripps Ranch won two awards from the local design and architecture community. Davis Davis Architects designed the $44-million facility. The building houses office, research, and recreation facilities and includes lab space (31,000 sf), a dining area with full-service kitchen (3,600 sf) and an executive meeting room (2,600 sf). Several of the project team members include McGraw/Baldwin Architects, Hensel Phelps Construction, and Hope Engineering.

Nortel Networks is working with Koll Corporate Development and McCarthy Building Companies to construct Phase III of the Nortel Networks Galatyn Park campus. The $35-million expansion will add 296,000 sf of office space and two parking structures to the existing 500,000-sf campus. The fast-track project includes a seven-story office building and two, four-level parking structures for up to 1,600 cars, a credit union, company story, and cafeteria. At completion in March 2001, approximately 1,400 employees will be located in the new facility.

BellSouth  began construction in December 2000 on the Unbundled Network Element Services Center, a $35-million, 75,000-sf technical support center at a 15.5-acre site in Clay County, Fla. Completion is anticipated in June 2001. The center will serve to assist new phone companies that sell local phone service by buying BellSouth’s phone line service. The center will provide backup for similar operations BellSouth has in Birmingham, Ala., and  in Atlanta.

Oakland Telecommunications Access Center is a $30 million, 113,500-sf telecom facility under development at Oakland's Jack London Square. The state-of-the-art, four-story structure is being constructed by Mortenson Development Co. and will be the first of its kind built to telecom standard levels. Completion is scheduled for May 2001.

NetReach, a host and developer of Websites, plans to transform a 200,000-sf former asbestos manufacturer's warehouse into a high-tech hub for its operations. After $10 million in upgrades, the warehouse will become Two eCommerce Plaza, an "Internet-centric" small business park. NetReach, currently housed in an adjacent 12,000-sf building, will move into the new telecom structure when renovations are completed at the end of 2000. Space unoccupied by NetReach will be made available to other Web-based companies.

Star Media Network will consolidate three offices in late fall 2000 when the company occupies its new 136,000-sf headquarters in New York City. Site selection, interior design, and construction administration services have been provided by The Hillier Group's New York office. The new facility is a triangular-shaped, two-story loft space.

Infomart LLC of Dallas, in partnership with Nexcomm Capital Partners of Southport, Conn., will transform a 400,000-sf former cold-storage warehouse in Watertown into a telecom hotel for high-tech firms. The building provides a number of features required for telecommunications equipment: heavy floor capacity, high ceilings, proximity to fiber-optic networks. Renovations totaling $20 million are scheduled to start in August 2000 and be completed by late fall 2000.