Disruption is the rallying cry of the tech industry, but for one local company reviewing its real estate options, it was more of a dirty word.
Starting last September, Chelmsford-based Kronos looked at locations from the heart of Route 128 to the upper reaches of Route 495 as it looked for a consolidated headquarters for its expanding workforce.
Kronos, which provides cloud-based business management tools, also considered expanding at its existing office campus, build-to-suit opportunities and office buildings from Waltham to Westford before settling on the CrossPoint Tower in Lowell.
In the end, it didn’t make sense to uproot the company’s staff of 1,200 employees, which it calls “Kronites,” from their existing commuting patterns, according to Vince Devlin, Kronos’ chief procurement officer. That narrowed down the search to Chelmsford and Lowell, where Kronos focused on six properties before signing a 12-year lease for 435,000 square feet at CrossPoint. The landmark towers were originally constructed as the headquarters for Wang Laboratories. One of the buildings will be renamed the “Kronos Tower.”
“Ultimately, after mapping commute patterns of our existing workforce, we knew we needed to find a space close to where we are today to minimalize commute impact on our great employees,” Devlin said in an email.
At a ceremony Friday, Kronos marked the start of a $40 million office space buildout that it’s sharing with ownership, Anchor Line Partners and Farallon Capital Management.
Anchor Line and Farallon acquired the three-tower, 1.2 million-square-foot complex for $100 million in 2014.
Other recent transactions include leases with Bluetooth audio accessory manufacturer Jabra, which relocated its North American headquarters from Nashua, New Hampshire to 32,000 square feet at Cross Point, and Captivate, which operates video displays in office buildings, which leased 15,000 square feet.
Kronos’ relocation will take place in early 2017. Consolidating from 322,000 square feet in three buildings in Chelmsford will aid collaboration and new amenities such as onsite daycare, gym and game room will improve the workplace culture, Devlin said.
