Albany Business Review: M+W among first tenants to move into SUNY Poly's nearly $200M ZEN Building
Published:
Thursday, October 22, 2015 - 17:17
I wanted to share with you the following article from the Albany Business Review:
Oct 21, 2015, 7:08am EDT | Chelsea Diana
M+W moved its U.S. headquarters this week into the SUNY Polytechnic Institute's $191 million ZEN Building in Albany, New York.
The new headquarters, first announced in March, is moving 107 employees from the Watervliet Arsenal into a 30,000 square foot office on the fourth floor of the ZEN Building. Another 14,000 square feet of space, with room for an additional 50 employees, is available for expansion.
That includes M+W's new solar division, Gehrlicher Solar America Corp., which is preparing to start a $105 million, 5-year-plan to construct solar panels at SUNY Poly campuses.
"What we've designed here is open space, collaborative space," said Ron Oakley, CEO of M+W. "The way the industry is evolving, from a design and construction perspective, is requiring the input of the customers, us as the designers and ones building it, but also suppliers, vendors. They all have unique demands that line up with a high-tech facility like a fab. We created space where we can pull people from all different sources."
M+W U.S. is part of the M+W Group, one of the largest builders of computer chip factories in the world. The company has overseen a portion of the construction of ZEN as well as the construction of the GlobalFoundries computer chip plant in Malta in nearby Saratoga County. M+W continues to have some employees based in Malta, though Oakley said that is winding down.
In 2010, M+W invested $228 million to move its U.S. headquarters from Austin, Texas, to the Watervliet Arsenal near Albany. The company took up more than 30,000 square feet of space in the arsenal, which has been left empty. SUNY Poly officials said they're working with the arsenal to find a new tenant or tenants.
M+W and SUNY Poly celebrated the move during a ribbon cutting at ZEN on Thursday. It's among the first tenants to move into the building.
The 356,000-square-foot ZEN Building is designed to generate as much energy as it uses over the course of a year using renewable resources. It will be a living laboratory for research into renewable energy resources, and is expected to draw more than 1,500 “clean tech” jobs to the state.
The $191 million investment is overseen by Fuller Road Management, the real estate arm of the college.
The ZEN Building is funded through a three-way financing agreement between Albany County, the city of Albany, and the college, with the Albany County IDA providing access to $186 million in bonds. The financing will come from private revenue generated from ZEN’s corporate tenants and involves no public or taxpayer money. In return, SUNY Polytechnic is providing a $1.9 million matching economic development grant to the city of Albany.
Whiting-Turner is the general contractor for the project and Columbia Development is the construction manager.
Other tenants in the building include EYP Architecture and Engineering, who has already moved in, New York State Power Authority and Albany real estate developer Columbia Development, among others.
The top floor with 50,000 square feet will be the new headquarters for CommerceHub, an Albany software company that does online order processing for retailers such as Wal-Mart and Sears, which will benefit from Start-Up NY tax credits by locating there. That company plans to move in after the new year.
