Verizon Consolidates Operations at Basking Ridge Campus Lee Brathwaite, Verizon's vice president of real estate    If a corporate campus can have nine lives, then the third is now under way at the former AT&T headquarters in Basking Ridge, N.J. In 2002, Pharmacia purchased the 140-acre (57-hectare), 1.3 million-sq.-ft. (120.800-sq.-m.) complex for US$200 million, prior to its merger with Pfizer Corp. Today, the campus is back in the telecommunications sector. Verizon Communications announced in March that it would purchase the Somerset County property to consolidate operations housed in disparate locations around the U.S. And Verizon has no plans to transition out of the location any time soon.    "We went through a very detailed, spirited site search," says Lee Brathwaite, vice president of real estate. "My team was responsible for pulling all the data together to first evaluate states and areas nationwide." Early criteria included cost of living, access to airports and proximity to other Fortune 50 and telecom companies. Senior management then directed Brathwaite's team to focus on markets in which Verizon has a major wireless and wire line presence, meaning the East Coast.    At that point, the search narrowed to available facilities that met the original criteria in four states: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and New York. Discussions with state officials concerning incentives and other matters were initiated, except with New York; the Empire State was among the first of the finalists to be eliminated, mainly due to higher relocation costs and a dearth of suitable space in which to house up to 3,300 employees. The campus that was formerly home to AT&T and then Pharmacia is now welcoming a consolidation of Verizon operations from across the U.S.    During this phase of the site search, Verizon engaged Stadtmauer, Bailkin Biggins, a Princeton-based consultancy specializing in incentives negotiations, to help analyze the packages put forth by the remaining candidate locations, both state and local. "External support we received in this respect together with our internal professionals that deal with incentives and regulators and so forth made a big difference in how the process unfolded," says Brathwaite. "It is very important to communicate accurately the benefits of what you are trying to accomplish to the state or the county. Doing that right is worth the expense.    "At the end of the day," he adds, "the Basking Ridge location is convenient in terms of access to major highways, and New Jersey worked hard in the area of incentives. It also meets our requirement of getting into the facility quickly. One of our objectives was to implement the plan as quickly as possible, because we didn't want to delay the process of bringing the teams together into the complex."    Verizon senior executives began occupying the buildings in December 2005, and additional groups are moving in as renovations are complete. "About two-thirds of the buildings are occupied, and the rest will be in place by mid-August," Brathwaite reports.