City has good stock of commercial space for expansion needs

LONGMONT ? With more than a million square feet of available office/industrial space locally, Longmont is still attracting large companies and filling up much of its available space.

At the end of 1991, primary employers ? those exporting a product or service and importing cash — occupied 3.8 million square feet of office and industrial space, according to figures from the Longmont Area Economic Council (LAEC). From 1992 to 2000, primary employers have occupied an additional 4.3 million square feet of space, representing an average annual absorption of 472,780 square feet since 1991.

As of mid-March, primary employers occupied 8.03 million square feet of office/industrial space. This reflects 22,800 square feet of new construction and 7,349 square feet of net existing space absorbed as of the end of the first quarter.

The manufacturing/office/R&D vacancy rate is 14.6 percent. About 21 percent of this space is available at the Boulder County Business Center, formerly the Longmont Business Center, which has 306,638 square feet vacant.

Lease and purchase rates for office/flex space in Longmont range from $6.50 to $13 per square foot, rates for industrial and warehouse space range from $5 to $8 per square foot and rates for industrial land range from $1.75 to $5 per square foot.

In January, Scotts Valley, Calif.-based Seagate Technology Inc., a manufacturer of disk drives, tape drives and software, celebrated the grand opening of a new, 450,000-square-foot campus near the northeast corner of 75th Street and Nelson Road.Boulder County Business Center

The Boulder County Business Center is a 750-acre office/light manufacturing/R&D business park located at the southeast corner of Pike Street and Hover Road. The center has one 553,000-square-foot building with two tenants at present: Storage Technology and SCC Communications.

Louisville-based StorageTek has occupied a 31,000-square-foot space of the building since 1992, and SCC Communications moved into a 35,000-square-foot space last November, said Jim Reed, director of asset services for CB Richard Ellis.

CB Richard Ellis will not begin planning more buildings until the first building is filled up, Reed added. At full build-out, the park could have another 800,000 square feet in 14 or more buildings.

Boulder Technology Center and Monarch Park

Boulder Technology Center (BTC) and Monarch Park, located at Highway 52 and Highway 119 (the Diagonal Highway between Boulder and Longmont), across from IBM, houses a variety of tenants, including many high-tech companies.

Tenants include Horizon Organic, which has 42,000 square feet; Xpectra, with 33,000 square feet; and Vapor Tech, which has 60,000 square feet.

Helix, a company that sells vacuum measurement equipment to electronics manufacturers, moved into a 60,000-square-foot space at BTC a year ago, said Steven Michaud, director of operations. The company has a 15-year lease there. Before moving to BTC, Helix was housed in two facilities, one on Arapahoe Avenue and the other on Airport Road, with a total of 35,000 square feet.

“The (new) site was picked because of its location, with its proximity to Highway 119, which was viewed as an area to attract good employees as we continue to grow,” he said.

Since Helix acquired Granville Phillips in 1998, it has grown 25 percent, Michaud said, and the company has plans for continued growth.

Chaparral, a company that designs, builds and sells controllers for external storage, in the form of disks and tapes to companies such as McData and StorageTek, moved into a 60,000-square-foot space at the BTC last Labor Day, said Gary Allison, Chaparral’s chairman and chief executive officer.

Before moving to BTC, Chaparral was located in a 25,000-square-foot space in the former Adaptec building on Fordham Street near Clover Basin Drive in Longmont. The new building houses the company’s headquarters as well as development labs for engineers.

Chaparral recently subleased approximately 20,000 square feet of its space to CreekPath Systems Inc., a spin-off of Exabyte Corp., which moved its headquarters from Boulder into the building April 25.

Chaparral has approximately 85 employees, with plans to expand, Allison said. “CreekPath, which has 35 or 40 employees, has a two-year lease,” he said. “By the time their lease is up, we are expecting to add that many employees.”

New Office Building

Longmont’s Pratt Properties is working on several real estate lease deals in Longmont.

Construction of a two-story, 450,000-square-foot office/R&D building is being completed at 2452 Clover Basin Drive, said Marty McElwain, director of real estate for Longmont-based Pratt Properties.

Maxtor Corp. plans to move into that facility by the end of the second quarter, he said. Maxtor Corp. currently occupies 350,000 square feet in eight different buildings in Longmont. Pratt is marketing and talking to prospects about leasing this space after Maxtor Corp. moves out.

Also, construction of a 28,000-square-foot, single-story Gart Sports building at the Village at Burlington, east of Highway 119 along Pratt Parkway, is scheduled to be complete by mid-June.

An industrial, 36,000-square-foot building at 105 South Sunset has just been completed, McElwain said, adding Pratt has three active prospects for possible tenants, but no leases signed yet. Mill Village Business Park

Mill Village Business Park consists of one, 44,000-square-foot two-story building at 1700 Kylie Drive, which is south of Highway 119 and one-half mile west of County Line Road.

Davita, a kidney dialysis company, occupies 7,500 square feet of the building. Curventa, a software company, is in 11,000 square feet, and Linnell & Soreide Marketing Partnership is leasing 5,000 square feet, leaving 20,500 square feet available for lease, said Jim Ditzel, a broker with Gibbons-White.

A second building will be erected if the company can get some pre-leasing agreements, he said, adding the total number of buildings in the park has yet to be determined.

The Mill Village Business Park is taking into consideration the concept of new urbanism, Ditzel said. With houses nearby, people could live and work in the same area.Creekside Business Park

Creekside Business Park is an 830-acre office/flex development being built by Chandelle Development LLC of Denver at the southeast corner of Pike Street and Hover Road, said Norm Blum, senior vice president and an industrial broker with Grubb & Ellis.

The park consists of two buildings; one 100,000-square-foot building, which is 100 percent leased, and another 86,000-square-foot building that has all but 5,000 square feet leased. Also, three 71,000-square-foot buildings are under construction in the park and are scheduled to be completed in August, Blum said.

Tenants include Mentor Graphics, Zygo Automation, Vitesse Semiconductor and Emulex.

Also, Agere Systems, a spin-off of Boulder-based Lucent Technologies, moved to the park last January. Agere creates optical components and semiconductors for communications for companies such as Seagate Technology Inc. and Maxtor Corp.

Agere Systems is leasing 16,100 square feet of a building at Creekside Business Park, said Greg Sheets, site director for the Longmont facility. Agere has 30 employees at the Longmont facility now, he said, and the company has room to double that number.

Agere Systems chose the Longmont location after it acquired Longmont-based VTC a little over a year ago, Sheets said. Longmont was close to the customers of the former VTC and seen as a good place to attract employees, he said.

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