**OT**GTE to add 1,000 workers at new site
What does GTE need this expansion for? Internet over cable? Opportunities for IIA?
amcity.com:80/boston/stories/1999/06/21/story1.html
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June 21, 1999
GTE to add 1,000 workers at
new site
Scott Van Voorhis Journal Staff
WOBURN--One of the nation's biggest Internet
ventures has embarked on a major Bay State hiring
binge.
GTE Corp.'s fast-growing Internet division unveiled
plans this week to build a major new corporate
campus along Interstate 93 in Woburn and hire 1,000
new employees to staff it.
Executives at Irving, Texas-based GTE said they will
retain the option of tripling the size of their five-story
Woburn complex during the next few
years--potentially leading to thousands of more new
hires.
The Internet division, GTE Internetworking, now
boasts 5,000 employees here and across the nation,
as it approaches $1 billion in revenue.
Still, like other Internet ventures, the GTE
division--formed by phone and telecommunications
giant GTE after its 1997 acquisition of legendary
Cambridge-based Internet pioneer BBN Corp.--has
yet to turn a profit for the company.
Undaunted, GTE executives said they are determined
to expand and mine the Boston area's pool of high
tech talent.
"We are averaging almost five hires a day," said
Vaughn Harring, a spokesman for GTE's Internet
division.
GTE's local expansion comes two years after the
telecommunications company, in a $661 million deal,
acquired BBN Corp., considered one of the lead
players in the development of the Internet. GTE took
its own Internet unit, combined it with BBN, and
created a new division: GTE Internetworking.
GTE Internetworking, which plans to keep its sizable
headquarters in Burlington, said this week that it
would spend upward of $35 million on building a
235,000-square-foot office complex along Interstate
93 in Woburn. GTE will have the option of expanding
its corporate complex to as much as 650,000 square
feet of space--enough space for 2,500 employees.
The Woburn site is part of a 1 million-square-foot
office and retail complex that National Development of
New England is building along I-93 off a new exit
being built off the highway.
"That is a major chunk of space to be committed to
and a major corporation that is doing it," said Joseph
Fallon, president of Boston-based commercial real
estate firm Fallon Hines & O'Connor.
GTE is just the latest in a long line of corporations
that have invaded the Bay State with ambitious plans
to build large campuses aimed at recruiting local
workers.
Last week, the Boston Business Journal reported that
Redwood Shores, Calif.-based software giant Oracle
Corp. wants to develop a $100 million campus for
close to 2,000 employees on Route 128. Meanwhile,
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Sun Microsystems is in the
middle of building a $200 million campus for 4,000
employees in Burlington, and 3Com Corp. of Santa
Clara, Calif., recently moved into its own corporate
campus in Marlborough.
GTE's Internet venture, as it lays out plans to build in
Woburn and add 1,000 employees to its payroll, is
coming off a year in which it has already hired 400
workers.
Spurred by this growth, the GTE division last year
moved its headquarters from Cambridge to
Burlington, redeveloping an old industrial complex into
a modern office building that has given the Internet
player a presence along Route 128.
But the fast-expanding GTE unit, which provides
Internet access and runs World Wide Web sites for
major corporations, was soon on the hunt for more
expansion space.
GTE executives initially hoped to buy and build on 15
acres of industrial land next door to its new
Burlington complex. But after weighing their options,
and touring several other Boston area development
sites as well, they decided building in Woburn would
be more cost effective, officials said.
Meanwhile, GTE's decision to expand in Woburn,
instead of Burlington, could have a major impact on
Oracle.
Before deciding to build in Woburn, GTE had been
interested in the same stretch of land along Route
128 in Burlington where Oracle wants to build its $100
million corporate campus. The 15-acre development
site also happened to be next door to the GTE
Internet division's Burlington headquarters.
But with GTE now out of the running for the
Burlington highway land, Oracle may be closer to
striking a deal for the coveted site, industry observers
said.
GTE's decision also should provide a big boost to
Newton-based National Development of New England.
The real estate development firm has been
aggressively marketing its 1-million-square-foot
MetroNorth Corporate Center along I-93 to
prospective corporate tenants like GTE. National
Development has taken out newspaper ads and hired
the Boston office of New York-based commercial real
estate firm Insignia/ESG to market the office park.
Medford-based biotech company ArQule Inc. is
building a new headquarters building in the Woburn
complex, while Minneapolis-based retail powerhouse
Target is planning to open a store there as well.
"It's a big deal," said Steven Murphy of Insignia/ESG,
of the GTE move.
City officials in Woburn also touted GTE's decision to
expand in the north-of-Boston industrial city, whose
travails as home to a huge toxic waste dump site
formed the storyline for the best-selling book and
subsequent film "A Civil Action."
The office park where GTE's Internet division will build
a new corporate complex is about a mile north of the
toxic dumping ground portrayed in the film. Moreover,
the new Woburn office park has had a troubled
environmental history of its own, having absorbed
decades of contamination from leather finishing
businesses and a chemical plant.
The federal government is now wrapping up a $70
million cleanup of the land, which has been vacant for
years.
For Woburn officials, who have been pushing to
redevelop the industrial site for more than 25 years,
GTE's corporate complex plans are a big win.
"This is a big win for Woburn and for the
environmental effort," said Woburn Mayor Robert
Dever.
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