by Shane Henson — December 17, 2012—Balfour Beatty Construction, W&J Construction Corporation, and M.W. Williams Construction Group have announced that the construction of the $100 million Harris Technology Center in Palm Bay, Florida is scheduled to begin in January 2013.
The companies were contracted to build the six-story, 464,000-square-foot Harris Technology Center for Harris, an international communications and information technology company that employs more than 15,000 employees worldwide, including 6,500 employees in central Florida. According to Harris, the center is part of an initiative designed to foster engineering innovation while retaining existing and attracting new highly skilled engineers to the region. Harris will relocate more than 1,200 employees from existing buildings to the new facility, it says.
At a ground-breaking ceremony for the building, Florida Governor Rick Scott and Harris Corporation president and CEO William Brown joined other state and local dignitaries to kick off construction on the facility, which they expect to become the centerpiece for some of the company’s most advanced engineering efforts. Balfour Beatty Construction, said to be the fourth largest contractor in the nation, is reportedly thrilled to play a part in building this project.
Highlights of the new Harris Technology Center, designed by the Melbourne, Florida, office of architecture firm BRPH, include employee amenities such as a cafeteria and fitness center, advanced innovation labs and collaborative work spaces, and energy-efficient designs to promote sustainability. The construction team plans to reuse almost 75% of materials from demolition of a building at the site.
