Industry News

Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), pressured by California's high real estate prices, is expanding instead in Charlotte, rather than in Palo Alto, Calif., where the institute is headquartered. The new $5 million building will be constructed at the 10-acre site where EPRI's current 102,000-sf operations are located. The new 50,000-sf structure will accommodate traditional office functions, freeing up space in the existing building for more research and laboratories.

Calibre Systems has selected Dietze Construction Group to complete the interior build-out of its new 80,000-sf office. The Smith Group designed the office for the defense contractor, which is scheduled for completion in spring 2001. The facility will be part of Metro Park in Alexandria, a 1 million-sf office park of five-, six-, and 10-story office buildings being developed by Fried Cos.

MassTech Center LLC is a proposing to build a 3.7-million sf technology office park in Eastern Massachusetts at the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station. If approved by the South Shore Tri-Town Development Corp., the Hingham, Mass.-based company would proceed with a staged development of the project over an eight to ten-year period.

Zygo TeraOptix Inc., based in Holliston, Mass., has a $9 million renovation and expansion under way in Westborough at a newly purchased 87,000-sf facility. A 33,500 sf expansion will create a new floor within one section of the structure that has 50-ft-high ceilings, bringing the total space available to 120,000 sf. Employees will begin occupying approximately 30,000 sf of the building in December 2000, while renovations to the electrical and HVAC systems are ongoing.

Loudon Tech Center is a new $10 million, 25,000-sf data center under development in Sterling by Colo.com. The company, based in California's Silicon Valley, is focussing on much smaller data centers than are currently being built, offering speed to market, customer service, and security as benefits of the smaller facilities. Colo.com opened a similar data center in Vienna, Va., in early 2000.