Telecommunications

Solid Data Systems plans to relocate from its 30,000-sf facility in Santa Clara, Calif., to a new 67,500-sf building at Piercy business Park in South San Jose's Edenvale section. The planned expansion anticipates Solid Data's plan to quadruple its staff to 400 employees over the next two years. Construction began in December 2000, with move-in planned for May 2001. A second 67,500-sf building is scheduled for 2002. Mission West Properties is the developer of the buildings. Solid Data Systems manufactures Internet infrastructure hardware.

Intel Corp., based in Santa Clara, Calif., may consolidate employees from its three San Diego facilities at a 31-acre site at Scripps Ranch which the company purchased in December 2000. The site could accommodate approximately 1 million sf of office space, which would be sufficient for several thousand employees. Intel's San Diego operations, which employ about 480 people, include networking and communications products; a wireless R&D operation; and a logic chip sets facility.

Acterna is building a new 500,000-sf three-building campus headquarters in Germantown. The headquarters building, an engineering lab, and a manufacturing facility will comprise the campus, which will accommodate approximately 1,000 employees. Occupancy is scheduled for early 2002. Architect for the project is Hickock Warner Fox Architects. The developer is a joint venture of The Peterson Cos., Foulger Pratt, and Argo Investment.

America Online (AOL) has expansion plans in Northern Virginia. Construction began in late 2000 on a new $555 million technology center in Gainesville, similar to the one AOL has in Manassas. Both are in Prince William County, Va. At the company's headquarters in Dulles, an $86 million expansion is under way with two new buildings where 1,200 employees will be housed. One of the buildings is nearing completion.

Inktomi, an Internet infrastructure company based in Foster City, plans to expand near their headquarters with a 381,000-sf two-building complex at the $132-million Parkside Tower development. The two eight-story buildings accommodate 17,400 sf of retail on the ground floor and two three-story parking structures. Completion of construction is anticipated in December 2001. The developer is Wilson Cornerstone.

California State University Hayward has joined with Geographic Network Affiliates International in a public-private partnership for the construction of an Internet switching center on six acres at the Hayward campus. Phase one of construction may be begin as early as April 2001 on a 180,000-sf facility to house network equipment and servers, with completion in fall.

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.

Boston Internet City, a 450,000-sf telecommunications facility in Brighton, is nearing completion. Occupancy of the $55 million project is expected by summer, with tenant improvements starting as early as mid-February. Cabot, Cabot & Forbes, based in Boston, is developing the project.

Teraspace Networks has plans to provide co-location space for major voice and data carriers with a 500,000-sf data center in Austin that Teraspace will help finance, build and operate. The Austin data center will be one of seven $20 million facilities the company plans to develop. Construction is already under way on a 1.1 million-sf data facility in Fort Worth, Texas, to be followed in late 2001 by one in Austin and one in Houston. No dates have yet been set for centers in Phoenix and Denver.

Qwest Communications International Inc. expected to begin construction in December 2000 on a 157,000-sf data center at the Met Center business park near Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. Completion of the shell is anticipated in summer 2001, at which point Qwest will finish out the facility for occupancy in late 2001.

GiantLoop Network has hired Peabody Construction of Boston to renovate an 89,000 sf facility in Waltham, MA. Technological upgrades are included in the project cost of $2 million.

Siemens Information and Communication Networks Inc. plans to relocate its Siemens Enterprise Networks Inc. division from Santa Clara, Calif., to the Skyport development under construction at San Jose International Airport. Siemens will move 1,200 employees in fall 2001 into two of three buildings being developed by Spieker Properties Inc. The two towers, providing a total of 370,000 sf, will house Siemen's global development headquarters for voice, data, and Internet applications.

Brocade Communication Systems is expanding operations at the Skyport development at San Jose International Airport. The company, which provides storage area networking infrastructure, will occupy an entire eight-story, 195,000-sf office tower currently under construction. The Brocade building is one of three that Spieker Properties Inc. is developing at the site. A second phase of construction, scheduled to start in two to three years, will include an additional three buildings, for a total of 1.1 million sf of office space.

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.