FAIRFIELD COUNTY
BUSINESS JOURNAL YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR REGIONAL BUSINESS NEWS | westfaironline.com
April 21, 2014 | VOL. 50, No. 16
COMMERCIAL R.E. MARKET ADAPTS, GAINS
Bill Fallon
FCBJ this week ka-POW! Marvel’s Hulk helps open the new LEGO store at Danbury Fair Mall … 7
BY BILL FALLON bfallon@westfairinc.com
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aUTOgraPHS in THE Sky A regional hospice facility rises in Danbury … 10 ViOLEnCE On CaMPUS A Fairfield legislator wants to strengthen protections for women … 13 ‘UnHaPPy SUrPriSE’ The state’s public schools rank poorly nationally … 15
MEDIA PARTNER
Michael Boccardi, president and CEO of Cervalis.
CERVALIS OPENS $50M DATA CENTER BY CRYSTAL KANG ckang@westfairinc.com
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ervalis, one of Connecticut’s largest technology and information technology service providers, recently opened its high-security, 168,000-squarefoot data center to the public. This is the company’s fourth office complex and first in Norwalk. Powered by two utility companies,
Connecticut Light & Power Co. and the Third Taxing District Electric Department, the Cervalis center provides co-location, disaster recovery, hosting and cloud computing for clients. With businesses trying to recover from the impact of recent snowstorms and recurring natural disasters over the past few years, Cervalis is adding another layer of protection and extra storage space for companies
fter a positive first quarter, five executives from CBRE, plus the company’s director of research, offered a healthy take on a commercial market battered by recession and, lately, finding fresh pulses. The focus was Fairfield, but neighboring Westchester County, N.Y., was also part of the uptick and the conversation. Fairfield County’s overall leasing activity of 612,176 square feet in the first quarter was nearly three times the level of the 247,782 square feet leased in the first quarter of 2013, CBRE reported. CBRE also found overall leasing performance in Fairfield County in the first quarter was 25 percent above the five-year first quarter average of 489,617 square feet. The Stamford central business district and the Stamford noncentral business districts together accounted for 62 percent of leasing activity for the first quarter in the county. “Just in the last six weeks alone I’ve become bullish,” said Robert Caruso, CBRE’s managing director. Caruso met with the press recently at CBRE’s 201 Tresser Blvd. headquarters in Stamford along with Khadija Licata, CBRE’s director of research services; Tom Pajolek and Paul Jacobs, executive vice presidents; and Brian Carcaterra and Jeff Gage, senior vice presidents. Executive Vice President William Cuddy and Johanna Clark, the company marketing and communication director, also attended. The 416 commercial buildings in Fairfield County contain 43 million square feet and
» Cervalis, page 6
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grOWing THE STEM Technical education proves popular, even after school .
» CBrE, page 6
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