Industry News

SAP America Inc., in the midst of a $100 million, two-building construction project to serve as its North American headquarters, has purchased an additional 150 acres surrounding the campus. The software manufacturer completed its first three-story, 450,000-sf building in summer 1999, which houses approximately 1,000 employees. A start date for the second building has not yet been set, and it is uncertain how acquisition of the acreage will affect building plans.

Quintiles Transnational is building a new $3.4 million, 103,000-sf facility, Bradford Place, to consolidate its ten Research Triangle Park offices in one location. Construction began in July 1999 and is scheduled for completion in June 2000. Architects for the project are WGM Design Inc., based in Charlotte, N.C., and Bell/Knott Associates, based in Kansas City, Kan. The general contractor is the Raleigh, N.C., office of Shelco Inc., headquartered in Charlotte.

ServerVault, based in Springfield, Md., will invest $6 million to $8 million to transform an old machine shop in Dulles into the country's first DOD-compliant commercial data center. A tall fence surrounds the building, which has no windows and houses a composite metal vault impenetrable by magnetic or wireless signals. The facility will be inspected and tested by the DOD when it opens later in the year. ServerVault also plans to open a Dublin, Ireland, data center by year's end.

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.