[Infowarrior] - Bell Labs building to be demolished

[Richard Forno]

June 14, 2006
Square Feet
Pastoral Site of Historic Inventions Faces the End
By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/realestate/commercial/14bell.html?_r=1&ore
f=slogin&pagewanted=print

HOLMDEL, N.J., June 7 ‹ For 44 years, a six-story, two-million-square-foot
structure nestled here in a 472-acre exquisitely pastoral setting was a
habitat for technological ferment.

The vaunted Bell Labs, whose scientists invented the laser and developed
fiber optic and satellite communications, touch-tone dialing and cellphones,
modems and microwaves, was housed in the glass building, set far off the
road, providing the community with some luster ‹ not to mention a tax
bonanza.

These days, the building's lobby, with its magnificent glass ceiling, is off
limits to all but those having formal appointments with Lucent Technologies,
which disassembled and dispersed much of Bell Labs after the collapse of the
technology market in 2000.

Few outsiders have viewed its breathtaking scale or walked along the
perimeters to admire displays of technological breakthroughs like a 1929
movie camera or an early office switchboard straight out of "Bells Are
Ringing."

But now, the building has been sold, and the public will be invited in for
at least one date while it remains, which may not be much longer. The
developer who will create a future for the property says the structure will
have to be demolished.

Preferred Real Estate Investments, a company based in Conshohocken, Pa.,
will maintain the site as office space and will keep the property as
pastoral as possible, said its chief executive, Michael G. O'Neill. But Mr.
O'Neill said his firm, which specializes in the reuse of outmoded commercial
buildings, simply could not find a way to renovate this structure.

The soaring lobby is surrounded on three sides by stacks of windowless
concrete-walled cubicles ‹ perfect for scientists, but unappealing to office
workers of any other type ‹ he noted.

"So many of these lavish old commercial buildings have a great history to
them, and then one day their useful life is over," Mr. O'Neill said a bit
wistfully.

When Lucent found itself needing to downsize and leave a special building
behind, it was following in the footsteps of another New Jersey
telecommunications giant, AT&T, which moved out of its opulent
2.7-million-square-foot headquarters in Bedminster in 2001. The AT&T
building stood empty for four years ‹ considered nearly unmarketable by some
commercial brokers. It did find a buyer last year in Verizon, which has
begun renovations aimed at carving up its gargantuan spaces and stripping
away some of the luxuries, like the waterfall in the cafeteria.

At one time, Lucent employed 5,600 people in Holmdel. The company plans to
move the approximately 1,000 who remain to offices in Murray Hill and
Whippany by the summer of 2007.

Right now, Mr. O'Neill said his primary focus was on providing reassurance
to the citizenry of Holmdel that not much has to change in terms of the
Lucent property's historic impact on the town.

Bell Labs has been a cash cow in a picturesque setting ‹ paying $3.19
million in property taxes last year, while putting little strain on town
services. Holmdel's mayor, Serena DiMaso, and other town officials have been
adamant that a housing development, which might require additional traffic
control, new infrastructure and school spending, would not be a suitable
replacement.

"I think there were about 20 other developers competing against us to buy
the property," Mr. O'Neill said, "and everybody we competed with wanted to
put 500 to 600 houses here, and turn this into a big subdivision, but that
is not our intent.

"Can you imagine? This incredible, expansive space ‹ cutting it up, and
covering it over with yet another cookie-cutter community of McMansions?"

Mr. O'Neill, whose company recently converted a pre-World War I toilet
factory in Hamilton, N.J., into plush office space, said plans for the
Lucent site were in very early stages. It is expected, he said, that a
public meeting about the property will be held inside the Bell Labs
structure during the last week of this month.

On a walking tour of the property, Mr. O'Neill said he currently envisioned
three smaller headquarters-type buildings in place of the one big lab
structure, providing somewhat less total space than the Bell Labs building.
"The size would be in keeping with the more modest size of today's typical
company headquarters, or data processing centers," he said.

Final plans will not be drawn until companies commit to moving to the site,
Mr. O'Neill said.

The huge oval road around the building, the long approach from Crawford's
Corner Road and even the weirdly shaped water tower at the entrance ‹ said
by locals to resemble a transistor ‹ will most likely remain, though, Mr.
O'Neill asserted. "We want to keep the country-road feel," he said.

Diving enthusiastically through thick shrubbery, Mr. O'Neill made his way to
a lovely pond set behind Bell Labs, surrounded by plantings and weeping
willows and adjacent to a large terrace off the company cafeteria.

"This is such a special place for a company to offer its workers," he said.
"There is hardly anything like this available anywhere any more. We believe
people will be beating down the doors to move their businesses here."

Founded in 1992, Preferred owns numerous properties east of the Mississippi,
worth a total of more than $1.5 billion, that were once central to
communities but are now vacant or heading that way, according to Mr.
O'Neill.

At the former American Standard plant in Hamilton, for instance, the company
pledged to tastefully renovate the empty toilet factory and fill it with
high-quality tenants, and it kept its promises, said the mayor, Glen
Gilmore. Last month, with that job complete, Preferred sold the property,
now called American Metro Center, to two other large real estate companies.

Mr. O'Neill said he had no idea whether his company would be the long-term
owner in Holmdel. "Please!" he said, laughing and throwing up his hands.
"We've got a lot of work to do here and now."