Philly Tech News Facilities Roundup: Who's moving or expanding? (6/13/2012)

Tom Paine

Real estate decisions (leases, expansions, new buildings or offices) are often a good indicator of what's happening within a company, industry or region. This periodic Philly Tech News feature is a roundup of recent facilities news involving Philly area tech firms.

Zivtech, the Philadelphia development shop focused on content management systems such as Drupal and Alfresco and headed by partners Alex Urevick-Acelsberg and Jody Hamilton, moved this week from its old office on Strawberry Street to new digs in the Philadelphia Building on Walnut Street, where they have taken about half of the 15th floor-RJMetrics has the other half. They tell me they've just about doubled their square footage.
The old office, now available, was Indy Hall's original location. Zivtech also has people located in Madison, WI, and New York City.
Zivtech got Drupaldelphia off the ground a few years ago, and its fifth edition will be held on Saturday (correction: that's Friday), June 22 at Temple. There will be other events during the weekend, including the Drupaldelphia After / Zivtech Office Opening Party Jawn on Friday night.

Comcast has extended and expanded its lease at a former data center in Mount Laurel, going from 44,000 to 72,500 square feet. Comcast currently employs about 200 in the space at the former SunGard Data Systems facility, at Executive Park at East Gate on West Park Drive, which it first moved into in 2007. Comcast says it is expanding its research and development operations in Mount Laurel, which are apparently related to its rapidly growing Business Services segment.

Bethlehem-based online video service Viddler announced in April the opening of its second data center in New York City. Its existing data center in Phoenix now serves as a redundant backup. In what it described as a "six figure investment", Viddler said its "new, redundant, premium hardware assures the performance boost along with the ability to serve even more traffic at high speeds". "Lastly, we’ve enhanced our security and monitoring capabilities to provide a faster response to any potential problems."

Radnor-based Business Intelligence software vendor QlikTech has taken a seven-year lease on a pre-built 6,000 square foot space in the newly rennovated building at 292 Madison Avenue in New York, the Commercial Observer reported last week.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews cutting ribbon at opening of VideoLink's new Philadelphia
facility (Source: VideoLink)

Newtown, MA-based VideoLink opened a new video studio and production facility on Delancey St in Philly last week. MSNBC's (and Philly native) Chris Matthews was on hand for the ribbon cutting. The new facility has 4800 square feet, up from 3000 square feet in its old facility on N. 17th St. VideoLink is a provider of broadcast and corporate media services, solutions, and proprietary video production technology.

At Media, the social media-oriented branding agency, moved its offices in early March from Cherry Street to 222B Race Street. The new office provides ground level storefront space and two levels.

King of Prussia-based GSI Commerce, a unit of EBay, has opened a new office in New York. It houses staff from GSI Commerce's marketing services businesses including mobile advertising, ad retargeting, ad analytics, affiliate, and email. The office will have about 150 employees.



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