igns of life in the faltering economy are coming from the stalwart technology and life science companies of Massachusetts. In moves to save money and consolidate, much of the activity is oriented toward the Boston outskirts and even farther afield.
      Tegra Medical has completed the relocation of its Holliston, Mass., and Cranston, R.I., facilities into a new facility in Franklin. Even as Novartis chooses to add a new facility in Cambridge, Biogen Idec will move from there to a new 350,000-sq.-ft. (32,515-sq.-m.) building in Weston in 2010. Software developer Bitstream is leaving Cambridge too, getting twice the space for the same price at Normandy Partners' Marlborough Technology Park. Normandy has also developed Adobe Systems' new digs in Waltham, a 108,500-sq.-ft. (10,080-sq.-m.) facility sold to Adobe for $44.7 million, as the company moves approximately 200 people from its leased office in nearby Newton.
      Michael Bangs is director of global facilities operations for Adobe, overseeing a global portfolio encompassing 94 properties and 3.1 million sq. ft. (287,990 sq. m.), with 35 in Europe and the Middle East, 26 in the Asia Pacific and 33 in the Americas.
      "High-tech companies recognize the importance of being in Boston," says Bangs, citing the area's wealth of educational institutions and the "really smart people" they turn out. "About two years ago, as our lease was to expire, we started exploring different options in the area. The right business solution was to stay, but put a more permanent solution in place. Our financials allowed us to do that."
      At the same time, Normandy had permitted the spec building in Waltham, and was in the design phase. For the first time ever (Adobe owns only five of its 94 global properties), Adobe worked out a purchase agreement on a spec building.
      "We felt the lead time was much shorter than if we were to start from scratch on greenfield or brownfield," says Bangs. "It was a smart move on our part. We hope to occupy in the first quarter of next year."
      Among the smart attributes of the project was the fact that the majority of work had been accomplished by Normandy. "That was one of the reasons this was attractive to us," says Bangs, citing such items as wetland issues and the temporary shutdown of Route 128 to allow for blasting. "A lot of that development work is time consuming, and a majority of the risk takes place during the development cycle. By partnering with Normandy, we were able to avoid a lot of the risks."
      Bangs says his team didn't look very far afield, focusing on the 128 corridor: "Boston has its traffic and transportation eccentricities, and we wanted to stay fairly close to where we were, because that's where our employees were," he says. While the initial occupancy will total approximately 200 employees, the building can hold 400. And the new center, designed around an open-office concept, will boast a much higher level of amenities, says Bangs, from on-site food service and a fitness center to advanced videoconferencing facilities.
      "We feel our presence in Boston will continue to grow, and this will give us that opportunity," says Bangs.       In addition to having developed corporate campuses around the world, among Bangs' signal achievements is the founding of the Moffett Park Business and Transportation Association in the company's home territory in northern California. Now Adobe and others, under the guidance of Boston-based T3 Advisors, are starting up a similar group in Greater Boston, called the 128 Winter Street Council, in order to address workplace and transportation issues along the metro area's famous Route 128. In addition to traffic, the group will focus on such topics as snowstorm response, environmental issues and reliability of power and water service.
      Jack Troast is principal of T3 Advisors, a tenant rep firm whose clientele includes Adobe. Troast, who worked in state economic development from 2000 to 2004, says the infrastructure and planning issues of the immediate area are a natural consequence of infrastructure and planning issues not keeping up with suburban out-migration, combined with longstanding territorial boundaries that are just now loosening their grip in favor of a more regional outlook.
      "In Massachusetts, there tends to be a very home rule-oriented approach to dealing with issues," he says. "It's an artifact of these towns being formed in the 1600s and early 1700s. In the South and West, they've been expanding their boundaries, but in the Northeast, you're always going to butt up against a 200-year old boundary."
      State government gets the picture. In February 2009, Gov. Deval Patrick appointed to the post of Director of Infrastructure Investment Jeffrey A. Simon, a 30-year industry veteran who headed up real estate development services firm Simon Properties, and before that presided over Actus Lend Lease out of Nashville. He also has worked in state government in Massachusetts on three separate occasions. He knows infrastructure is the veins and arteries of business, and thinks the federal funds used so far by the state have dovetailed well with the governor's economic development plan, including his $1-billion life sciences program launched in 2008.
      "It's getting people working quickly," he says of the state's spate of shovel-ready projects, "but in the course of doing that, we've been able to invest in large projects, and begin to lay the foundation for future growth."
      One is the 5-million-sq.-ft. (464,500-sq.-m.) Assembly Square mixed-use project in Somerville, on a 66-acre (26.7-hectare) former industrial site that, much like Atlantic Station in Atlanta, has welcomed the region's first IKEA store as an anchor tenant. Another is the South Coast Biopark in Fall River, where a new $70-million interchange on Route 24 will open up the property to a number of development options, anchored by UMass-Dartmouth's biomanufacturing facility.
      Simon says his wide-ranging department is looking at a long list of projects on both the transit and highway sides, and so he anticipates a bit of complaining about orange work-area barriers. But the long-term goal is no obstacles at all.
      "We think that that level of investment will lay the groundwork for a lot of private company expansion as well as private funding leverage," he says. He's also impressed with improved efficiencies within state government.
      "The best example is with MassHighway," he says. "Before the stimulus program, they took 120 days to advertise, bid and award their projects, including typical paving projects." After putting that department's creative engineers and staff to work on that process, when stimulus projects were awarded, "they did it in 44 days."       When it's completed in 2010, 3,400 of IBM's top technical talent are expected to occupy the IBM Mass Lab, a two-campus project announced in November 2008 that IBM says will be the largest software laboratory in North America. That should go a long way toward boosting public perception of the company's 100-plus-year Massachusetts presence to the levels often associated with its locations in New York and the Research Triangle.
      IBM software developers will work at a former HP facility in Littleton leased from Jones Lang LaSalle, while Westford will be home to marketing, legal, finance, HR and other support functions, as well as a new executive briefing center. IBM also maintains a research hub in Cambridge and an innovation center in Waltham.
      Beth Friday, the co-lead for the IBM Mass Lab project, is vice president, worldwide client support, for IBM's Rational brand, one of five brands within the company's software group. She says her team embarked on the three-phase project about a year and a half ago, weaving together lease termination dates with sequenced personnel moves that made the best business sense. Movement in general was one of the prime motivators.
      "Massachusetts isn't very big, but it's hard to get between some of these locations," says Friday. "One of the prime opportunities we have in the Mass Lab location is to manage our business as we acquire other companies, with more flexibility to co-locate other individuals within the business."
      The Mass Lab will retain some sense of those acquisitions' personalities by using a neighborhood design concept.
      "These companies are highly innovative, very energetic folks," says Friday of the together-but-separate approach. "We're hoping to get the best balance of the two, so people can move between products or brands. The fact of the matter is that part of the group strategy is to have smart connections between individual products."
      The talent's home neighborhood is important too. Like Adobe, IBM focused its site selection on maintaining or improving the commutes of its employees. It also liked being able to access both Boston's Logan International Airport and Manchester Boston Regional Airport in Manchester, N.H. Friday says the number of people on campus meant there were few property options to consider. But there is still work to be done on transportation improvements.
      "One of the actions we've been championing is to have roadwork at I-495 right at the Littleton site, and there have been a number of improvements in that area," says Friday, adding that the community was happy to see a new occupant since HP began to move out five years ago. The company is part of a consortium with Cisco and Red Hat, among others, trying to help solve public transportation issues for the area.
      "We're trying to figure out shared ride services," says Friday. "Extending the railway, with approval for a double track to be added past the Foxboro station, will allow the state to have more frequent stops. Now you can only have a single train. So you can increase frequency for folks commuting out of the city."
      That would be a promising development for a promising business.
      "We anticipate IBM will remain focused on acquiring companies," says Friday. "One reason the Littleton site was so attractive to us was that we have the ability to add another 100,000 square feet [9,290 sq. m.] and can expand the zoning."
      Another, of course, was the talent.
      "We like Massachusetts because of great relationships with the universities and technical schools," she says, citing the company's good hiring track record from area institutions. Moreover, people in the industry are attracted to the Boston area. "We hire very high-quality individuals, and people like working for IBM. We're really going to try and capitalize."