Lucent expanding local division

LONGMONT – As Boulder County becomes a hotbed for high-tech companies, Longmont

continues to try and attract digital boomers, with slow but steady results.

Last spring, the Longmont Area Economic Council (LAEC) identified a window of op

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portunity to fill vacant industrial and office space within the city. The organi

zation determined that Longmont could best meet the tech industry’s burgeoning d

emand for space by luring companies before the end of this year, when several ne

w large office/industrial projects are scheduled to come online in the competing

and fast-growing corridor locales of Broomfield and Westminster.

According to Wendi Nafziger, vice president of the Longmont Area Economic Counci

l, the vacancy rate for industrial office space in the city has remained steady

over the past few months at around 13 percent. While that number might seem high

, Nafziger, who manages a database of the city’s vacant space, said that 40 perc

ent of the rate is represented by the 500,000-square-foot Longmont Business Cent

er, a former Storage Technology Corp. facility.

Businesses that recently have chosen Longmont for their Boulder County operation

s include communications giant Lucent Technologies, which is opening a new 16,00

0-square-foot microelectronics division at 1921 Corporate Center Circle at the C

reekside Business Park. The new facility will consolidate the company’s local mi

croelectronics operations currently located on Ken Pratt Boulevard in Longmont a

nd at Flatiron Park in Boulder.

“The new facility will include research and development as well as some marketin

g and sales,´ said Wayne Puglisi, mass storage sales director for Lucent. “We’re

going to be working on mass storage and integrated circuits. Basically, we prov

ide support to companies that do the disk drive for the personal computer indust

ry. We are expanding our process under one roof.”

Puglisi said the business moved to Longmont to be closer to some of its clients,

including Maxtor Corp. and Seagate Technology Inc. Upon completion of the build

ing’s core, Lucent’s real estate group will take on the interior and tenant fini

sh work at the new building. Puglisi said the business, which will open its door

s in January, plans to grow from 20 to about 60 employees. The entrance to Lucen

t’s facility is off of Sunset Street.

Mentor Graphics (Nasdaq: MENT), a business that provides products and consulting

for the telecommunications, automotive, consumer electronics, computer, semicon

ductor and aerospace industries, also is located at Creekside.

The company, which made headlines when it acquired its former competitor VeriBes

t last November, occupies 55,000 square feet at the business park. Mentor moved

to Longmont from Boulder in June. Mentor’s Longmont operation serves as the head

quarters for the division that develops the complex software tools used in desig

ning electronic products. The company, with 2,700 employees worldwide, reported

revenues of more than $490 million in 1999.

“After we acquired VeriBest, we wanted to maintain our presence on the F

ront Range,´ said Bob Potock, director of business development with Mentor Graph

ics. “We polled the employees, and they wanted to be in Longmont. And so far it

has been great. We like the facility and the location.”

John Cody, president and chief executive of the LAEC, said he will continue maki

ng trips to targeted trade shows across the country to attract more companies to

Longmont. So far this year, Cody has traveled to Los Angeles, San Jose and Bost

on to pursue companies in the medical device, photonics and biotech industries,

respectively. He said he also is currently is developing a new marketing plan in

conjunction with the Metro Denver Area Network (MDN), which represents economic

development groups in the metro area.

“We are working with the MDN to try and maximize our marketing efforts,” Cody s

aid. “They will be setting up media events in conjunction with the shows we atte

nd as part of their Convergence Corridor campaign. They use local papers, radio

stations and whatever outlets they choose. These events will be in addition to o

ur usual activities, which consist of meeting with our existing companies, who a

lso attend, and networking with potential new businesses. Longmont will have the

opportunity to compete for whatever companies express interest in the corridor

effort.”

Other new companies in Longmont’s economic development service area, which share

s the same boundaries as the St. Vrain Valley School District, include Helix, a

vacuum-measuring business for semiconductors that was formerly Granville Phillip

s.

The company moved in July to a new 61,000-square-foot building at 6450 Dry Creek

Road in the Boulder Tech Center across from IBM’s campus in Niwot, just off of

the Diagonal Highway. The company was attracted to its new location because of t

he availability of space and the ability to pull from the labor force in the sur

rounding communities.

The LAEC’s service area encompasses Niwot, Frederick, Firestone, Mead and parts

of Erie. Cody said his group’s services include recruiting new primary employers

and educating the community about the importance of primary jobs. The LAEC plan

s to meet with all the companies in its service area later this fall to discuss

utility issues including water, sewer and telecommunications.