Vestas Groundbreaking: A Spark For Marlborough Development?
For MetroWest developer Jon Delli Priscoli, last week's groundbreaking of a new research and development complex for international wind turbine manufacturer Vestas meant something a little extra.
Priscoli sold the land to Vestas for its new 27,000-square-foot complex; he also owns an adjacent 40,000-square-foot building that Vestas will be leasing space in.
Priscoli constructed the office building about four years ago, right before the market tumbled.
It's sat vacant since then. The Vestas groundbreaking marks the arrival of the building's first tenant.
Vestas plans to employ about 100 people in the budding Marlborough business and residential complex just off of Interstate 495 on Crowley Drive. It will complement the homes already under construction at the site by nationwide homebuilder Toll Brothers.
Last week Gov. Deval Patrick, state secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Richard Sullivan and various local officials gathered at the complex to help pitch the ceremonial first shovelful of dirt and kick off construction at the site.
Familiar Territory
Vestas, of Denmark, will combine its offices in Marlborough and Hudson into a new R&D center that is expected to be completed by the summer of 2012, company officials said. It will house the company's 34 area employees plus future new hires, and will focus on testing the company's electric power generators and converters.
Founded in 1979, Vestas has supplied 44,000 wind turbines to 67 different countries. While the company's U.S. headquarters are in Oregon, William Hendrickson, local general manager and vice president of Vestas Power Systems, said the company has had a Central Massachusetts presence since the mid-1980s. The area has been good for the company; Hendrickson said he's able to recruit employees from the region's top schools in the area.
"We're heavily rooted in the region," Hendrickson said at Thursday's groundbreaking in Marlborough.
As for the Crowley Drive stretch where Vestas is expanding, Priscoli said there has been more movement in the area of late.
Toll Brothers is building 69 age-restricted homes along the drive, which sits adjacent to Assabet Valley Technical High School.
Priscoli couldn't be happier to see the developments in the area.
He sold about a quarter of the property he owns to Toll Brothers, while developing the office building that Vestas will be renting on another portion of the land. Vestas plans to build the R&D facility and there is additional land for future expansion, Priscoli said.
In the meantime, Priscoli is working to fill the rest of the office building, which has been vacant for the past few years.
"Recently, things have begun to pick up," he said, noting he's in negotiations with a couple of other potential tenants.
Sitting less than a mile off the intersection of 495 and 290, the site offers easy access to the highways and Priscoli has built some athletic playing fields at the site for tenants of the office park to use.
Priscoli also has commercial and industrial real estate holdings on Elm Street in Marlborough, as well as on Locke Drive in the city.
He also owns the Edaville USA theme park in Carver and some railroad track in Grafton and Upton that runs 17 miles and eventually connects to the Framingham-Worcester rail line.
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