Real Estate & Construction September 18, 2020 8:31:43 pm

Vaisala opens new North American HQ in Louisville

Vaisala’s North American headquarters in Louisville. Courtesy Kira Vos.

By Lucas High

LOUISVILLE — As Vaisala Inc. employees begin to return to the office after their work-from-home experience ends, many will be welcomed into new digs.

The U.S. subsidiary of a Finland-based provider of weather, environmental and industrial measurements celebrated the opening this week of a new 35,000-square-foot North American headquarters adjacent to the firm’s existing operations in Louisville’s Colorado Tech Center business park.

Vaisala president T.J. Mattimore welcomes attendees to a grand opening celebration at the firm’s new headquarters building. Courtesy Kira Vos.

“This really represents reinvestment by Vaisala in the Front Range region,” Vaisala Inc. president T.J. Mattimore told BizWest during a celebration Thursday at the new headquarters. “It’s a state-of-the-art, Class A office building that really represents our history and our future.”

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The building, which was designed by OZ Architecture Inc. and features a weather-monitoring operations center, took a little more than a year to build.

“Designed to balance beauty, functionality and sustainability, Vaisala’s new headquarters building is one of Colorado’s most environmentally progressive office buildings,” Amanda Johnson, principal at OZ Architecture, said in a statement. “Our team incorporated a cross-laminated timber hybrid structure that allows for exposed wood ceilings in the office environment, as well as highly efficient systems, wall assemblies, and the infrastructure to be completely net-zero. Vaisala is a first-class, global company — and this building certainly reflects that.”

The new headquarters cost roughly $16 million to build.

“For us to build this basically on time and on budget during a pandemic was a pretty amazing accomplishment,” Mattimore said.

Currently, only about 20 to 25% of Vaisala’s Colorado workforce is working in the office.

“As we can bring folks in safely, we’ll do so,” Mattimore said. “But we’re certainly not going to rush it.”

About 110 employees are assigned to offices in the new headquarters, but the building has the capacity to house 200 or more employees.

Vaisala’s decision to invest in a new Louisville headquarters “speaks to why Boulder County is such a center for innovation,” Boulder Chamber CEO John Tayer said. “There’s such a synergistic relationship between the research that happens at [the University of Colorado and other federal labs in the region] and business development that happens in the private sector.”