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GTA North

Richmond Hill, the heart of the GTA's high-tech corridor, has seen five major building projects over the past year. It expects to break ground this fall on "Campus 2000," a massive high-tech complex smack in the center of the GTA's IT & high-tech cluster. According to the town's Office of Economic Development, Richmond Hill is Canada's "fastest growing largest municipality." The vacancy rate is low at 3.5 percent, officials report, and new office and distribution space is needed to accommodate expansion and investment growth.

Last spring, IBM Canada announced that its Software Solutions Laboratory -- already one of Canada's most significant R&D facilities -- will become a permanent fixture in the region. A new C$125,000 million, 425,000-sq.-ft. (39,500-sq.-m.) facility is being built on 88 acres (36 ha.) of land in Markham, just north of Toronto, and will amalgamate three separate facilities in various locations in the GTA. The new state-of-the-art mega-lab, slated for completion mid-2001, will bring together 2,000 IBM lab employees -- 500 will be new hires -- and most of whom are highly skilled software developers.

Mike Quinn, spokesperson for IBM Canada, says the increased employee base is necessary, because IBM Canada recently "picked up two new world-wide software missions for IBM -- DB2 [Database] and Websphere software," adding that it's "pretty exciting stuff." The new facility amalgamates three different sites, one "on a piece of land we no longer owned," says Quinn, saying the company had simply "outgrown" its current facilities.

The company also wanted a site close to its existing one to accommodate its employees. "We wanted a new site our employees would be proud to work at; we wanted a site close to traffic and transportation routes, close to available housing and hotels, and this was the site that best met our criteria." It will also allow for potential expansion, as innovative software continues to be developed, and it will also house a 200-capacity, 20,000-sq.-ft. (1,860-sq.-m.) child-care center, part of the company's newly announced $50US million global initiative to implement support services for its employees. "It will be one of the largest day-care facilities in Canada," says Quinn. IBM Canada has a total Canadian workforce of approximately 17,600.

Markham, too is seeing expansion activity. Just across the road from IBM will be a new Motorola Canada corporate headquarters, which will also amalgamate most of the company's GTA operations. Slated for completion by summer 2001, the seven-story, 224,000-sq.-ft. (20,800-sq.-m.) office tower will be situated on 13.6 acres (5.5 ha.) and will accommodate 850 employees. Alongside state-of-the-art communication capabilities, the building will boast a fitness center and cafeteria.