Perot Leasing 150,000-SF Office Build to Suit

LINCOLN, NE-Perot Systems has agreed to lease a new 150,000-sf data and call center here in the University of Nebraska Technology Park. Developer KDC purchased 21 acres from the park, has started construction on the $23 million facility and will lease it to Perot for 10 years when it is completed starting in the third quarter 2009. The new building will house one of the company’s largest employment locations.

Ab Atkins, SVP with KDC, says about 1,000 Perot employees will work at the new building. “This will be a consolidation of seven locations, which will provide support for the industries they serve in Nebraska, primarily the insurance industry. The building will also provide some economies of scale and efficiencies that they wanted to do for some time,” he tells GlobeSt.com. There will be room to expand to another 70,000 sf, depending on how dense the parking will be, Atkins says.

Perot’s Lincoln operations provide technology and business process support to the life insurance and annuity industry. Most of the company’s employees in Lincoln were formerly part of TAG/TMI, a company Perot acquired in 2005. The new facility will allow most of those individuals to relocate to one building.

“When we began looking for a way to bring our team together in one location, the University of Nebraska Technology Park proved to be the best fit, allowing us to strengthen our presence in Lincoln while also providing the required space for new job creation,” said Mike Kerrey, EVP of insurance and business process solutions at Perot Systems, in a statement.

The city is considering about $3 million in incentives for the new facility, he says. A similar facility has already been developed in the park, a $33 million, 112,800-sf call center for Verizon.

Atkins says the firm is building the new facility to gain LEED certification. The two-story facility will feature attributes such as raised-access flooring and under-floor air distribution, as well as redundant power through generators for uninterrupted electricity and redundant sonnet rings for uninterrupted telecommunications. The developer is als developing a technology service delivery center at the property.

Bob Edge, Gary Collet, Mari Jones, Meg Hardin and Matt Heidelbaugh with Cushman & Wakefield of Texas Inc. represented the tenant in the lease transaction. Atkins represented the developer.