Date: Mar 23, 2013 Author: Tim Schooley and Malia Spencer Source: bizjournals (
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A new robotics company is ready to spin out of the National Robotics Engineering Center into a significant new space for itself in Lawrenceville.
Carnegie Robotics, whose president and CEO John Bares was the director of NREC, has signed a long-term lease for the 30,000-square-foot blue former Heppenstall building owned by the Regional Industrial Development Corp. of Southwestern Pennsylvania.
The company doesn't expect to use all the space immediately and could also share the space with other similar companies. But it could eventually result in 100 employees in the building working largely on engineering, assembly work and testing.
Don Smith, president of RIDC, said it's the first time the building will have a long-term tenant after the optics company L3 left it two years ago.
"We're very happy to have Carnegie Robotics in there," said Smith. "It represents a great win for NREC and Carnegie Mellon University in spinning out companies and it continues to reinforce the continuing robotics cluster of companies in Lawrenceville."
When asked if this was the biggest lease he's seen so far for a robotics spin out, Smith said he believed so.
The new company will also make some significant improvements to the building and add mezzanine office space, said Smith. The building also offers two cranes and high bays.
Since first incorporating itself out of NREC, an operating unit within the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, Carnegie Robotics has grown to 23 full-time employees plus a handful of part-time and contract workers, said Dan Beaven, chief financial officer at Carnegie Robotics.
The company is building out lab and office space and expects to occupy about one third of the building. However, that could change if all goes well.
"We are working on some very big programs with some of the best technology coming out of CMU," Beaven said. "Hopefully some of these things will pop and we will be using all the space in the next couple years."
The company was spun out to help commercialize projects that were being developed at CMU. Prior to spinning out, the university would work with major corporate partners on R&D projects customized to their needs. The corporate partners would turn around and try to order units but the school was unable to do full production, he said. That is where Carnegie Robotics comes in.
The majority of the company's business is rooted in government funding. Beaven said one major program is working with the U.S. Army on anti-improvised explosive devices and anti-mine devices.
The company looked for space for about six months. It wanted to stay in the city in order to be close to CMU and to help recruiting. It's tough to try to recruit people from out of the area to work in the suburbs, he said. Carnegie Robotics is currently looking for software engineers and roboticists.
Smith expects the light industrial use will prove to be a better complement to the neighborhood around it than some of the heavy industrial users also interested in the building.
Local developer Jim Aiello Sr., principal of Lawrenceville-based JRA Development Group, who is redeveloping a former school property into apartments near the new Carnegie Robotics building, saw it as great news and sees it as a big move for such an early stage company.
"30,000-square-feet is a big chunk for a spin off," he said. "It must be a significant spin-off."
