Industry News

Nortel Networks Corp., based in Toronto, Canada, has plans to expand its 837,000-sf seven-building campus in Santa Clara with two six-story towers. The added 636,000 sf could accommodate approximately 2,000 employees engaged in R&D of technology. Pending approval by the planning commission and the city in May, ground breaking could begin in late summer.

Echelon Corp., developer of communication equipment, plans to relocate its 175 employees from Palo Alto, Calif., to San Jose in a three-story, 75,000-sf build-to-suit headquarters designed by the San Francisco office of Washington-based Ai and Barry Swenson Builder. Pending approval from the City of San Jose, Swenson will begin construction by June 2000, with occupancy scheduled for July 2001.

Nvidia Corp. will relocate its 350 employees to a new four-building headquarters campus in Santa Clara. The 500,000-sf project consists of four 125,000-sf buildings and a two-level, 550-space parking garage at an estimated cost of $180 million. The first two buildings are scheduled for occupancy by June 2001; the third by July 2001; and the fourth by March 2002. Each building will accommodate 500 people. The developer is Sobrato Development Cos. Nvidia makes 3-D graphic chips for PCs.

EDS, based in Plano, Texas, is planning to build a 200,000-sf facility at Washingtonian South in Gaithersburg. The giant computer company would also take an option on an additional 100,000 sf of space. Developer of the site is Peterson Cos. of Fairfax, Va.

EarthStation Netaxs, currently housed in 4,000 sf at Lee Park in Conshohocken, is relocating to a 33,000-sf structure at the Park with an option on an additional adjacent 33,000 sf. The ISP houses and monitors its clients' server computers that access the Internet. Special features at the new site include closed-circuit TV, site cams enabling clients to view their servers, and a sleeping area for employees staffing the data center 24 hours a day.