Telecommunications

San Antonio-based Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has opened the 9,700-sf Network Equipment/Building Systems (NEBS) dedicated testing facility for telecommunications equipment. NEBS testing determines how equipment performs in a variety of operating conditions, and enables clients to meet an industry requirement for pre-product evaluation. Included in the facility are several environmental chambers, such as a large-platform earthquake testing facility and a large walk-in chamber.

Brampton, Ontario-based Nortel Networks opened its new 14-acre office and lab campus in Santa Clara on May 29, 2002. Ground was broken on the two-story, 760,000-sf facility in September 2000 with buildings reaching completion in March and April 2002. Consolidating 15 separate Bay Area locations, the campus also includes a parking garage.

Zhone Technologies has selected architects Fee Munson Ebert and Ibsen/Senty Architecture to design its corporate headquarters and R&D facility in Oakland, Calif.   SRM Associates of Oakland will act as general contractor and project manager for the $54.5-million, 180,000-sf facility. Construction began in January 2000 and is slated for completion in March 2002.  

Verizon New Jersey’s new customer call center is being built in Hamilton by Cranford-based real estate investment trust Mack-Cali Realty Corp. The $10.7 million, 95,000-sf facility is located in Mack-Cali’s Horizon Center Business Park. Construction on the single-story property is slated for completion in the fourth quarter of 2002. Verizon New Jersey is a division of Verizon Communications.

Redundant Networks of Reno has selected the Keystone Office Park in Raleigh as the site of its East Coast data center. The Internet hosting and management start-up selected Raleigh because the city is located on a wide Internet pipeline. Fit-out of the 10,000-sf facility is slated for completion in April with operations to begin in May. Construction is also taking place on the company’s Reno headquarters.

Teleplan International awarded general contractor B2BilT of Boston the fit-out contract for its new  regional headquarters. The $1.5-million project includes mechanical, electrical and plumbing for 200,000 sf of production space as well as fit-out of 20,000 sf of office space.

The Huawei Technologies Corporate Data and Command Center, a 130,000-sf facility designed by RTKL’s Applied Technology Group in Baltimore, Md., is now under construction in Shenzhen, China.  Huawei is a leading supplier of telephone switching equipment in China. The ‘world class’ command center includes an executive briefing room overlooking a two-story, 50-seat command center station. The center supports an equipment load of 40w/sf in 20,000 sf of space, with expansion at the same load density up to 40,000 sf.

Verizon has awarded a program management contract to Syska Hennessy Group to design and build a fuel cell facility as the primary electrical power source at their 332,000-sf Garden City call-routing center. Pending permit approvals, Verizon plans to start installation of seven fuel cells manufactured by UTC Fuel Cells, a unit of United Technologies Corp. The system  is expected to be fully operational in 2004 and will operate in parallel with four new natural-gas powered engine generators, totaling more than 4 megawatts of generating capacity.

 Plans for the Silver Spring Innovation Center business incubator are being developed by Montgomery County and developer JBG Cos. Housing up to 15 young bioinformatics and information technology companies, the 12,000-sf facility is slated to open in 2003. The incubator is part of a larger mixed-use residential and commercial development including approximately 100,000 sf on the 3-acre site, possibly as a multi-floor facility.

Genesys Telecommunication Laboratories Inc. is relocating its 400-employee San Francisco headquarters to the Pacific Plaza in nearby Daly City. The nine-floor, 360,000-sf Pacific Plaza is nearing completion, developed by Summit Mack/Cali Associates. As an anchor tenant, Genesys will occupy 13,000 sf on four floors including the seventh, eighth, and ninth floors. Genesys is a maker of software connecting computers, databases, telephones, and the Internet.

Construction of Cox Communication's new 94,000-sf facility began in late January 2002 and is slated for completion in mid-April 2002. Lincoln Property awarded the fit-out contract to Dietze Construction of Chantilly, Va. The building was designed by HOK.

Telecommunications firm Ericsson has awarded Advantis Real Estate Services the contract to provide strategic facilities planning, technical support, and full-service facilities maintenance for its new Raleigh campus.   

Level 3 Communications Inc. is putting the finishing touches on its new $100 million data center in Needham. Level 3 plans to initially occupy approximately 80,000 sf of the huge 320,000-sf facility. The state-of-the-art structure’s back-up features include wiring for 13,8000 volts of power; a 400,000-gallon buried water tank for the cooling system; and triple redundancies in many of the building systems. Construction manager for the project is Sullivan & McLaughlin Cos. of Boston.

NeuStar, the supplier of area codes and blocks of numbers to telephone companies and Internet service providers, has opened its new headquarters office in downtown Washington. Ganek Baer Architects of Littleton, Mass., designed the facility to promote creative collaboration for the egalitarian corporate culture of NeuStar’s 150 employees. Offices are small and hexagonal, and surround open areas containing coffee islands. Small “backyard” alcoves which contain a round table a few chairs accommodate ad hoc consultations.

REMEC Inc. has plans for an 81,000-sf expansion at Parkway Business Centre, where the company’s wireless products division has a 65,000-sf R&D facility. The expansion includes all of the Parkway Centre Five building, where construction is expected to be complete in September 2001. The structure will accommodate the company’s broadband radio, mobile wireless infrastructure, as well as the wireless division’s manufacturing. KMA Architecture and Engineering is the architect for the project; R.G. Petty is the general contractor.