Ciena adding even more space
Baltimore Business Journal, Tuesday, April 29, 1997 at 16:38
Ciena Corp., a hometown technology company that took Wall Street
by storm earlier this year, is growing yet again.
The decision to lease another 57,000 square feet of manufacturing
space at the Airport Square Technology Park in Linthicum comes as
the company is shifting its headquarters from Howard County to Anne
Arundel County.
"We are growing so fast, and we needed space," said Ciena
spokesman Denny Bilter. "We moved because we couldn't get enough
space where we were."
Ciena had been based in Savage, outside Laurel. But as
manufacturing ramped up and more employees were hired, the company
opted to move its administrative and corporate offices to Airport
Squre in Linthicum, near Baltimore/Washington International Airport.
Manufacturing operations remain in Savage, and are expanding to
take over the space vacated in the move.
That move alone wouldn't solve Ciena's space problem. Bilter said
the new, 96,000-square-foot headquarters soon will be too small. The
company will add 57,000 square feet of manufacturing space in
Linthicum next month, adding to the 50,000 square feet in Savage.
Ciena is one of several companies that make a fiber-optic
telecommunications device using wave division multiplexing
technology.
The company was founded in 1992 but did not release its
multiplexing product until last fall. Since then, the staff has more
than doubled to more than 300 employees.
An initial public offering in February netted the company $80
million.
Ciena closed at $37 a share in its first day of trading. The
stock has since cooled to $25 a share, but the company's market
capitalization remains a hefty $2.3 billion.
Bob Starzynski is a reporter for the Washington Business Journal,
an affiliated publication. Baltimore Business Journal reporter David
Harrison also contributed to this story. |
