Kaua'i tech center grows

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau

The Kaua'i Economic Development Board hopes to break ground next month on a second office building for the West Kaua'i Technology Center.

The expansion of office space for firms in technology development and research is part of a county program aimed at enhancing high-tech job opportunities on the island's west side.

Financial support for the second phase of the complex has been confirmed, said Gary Baldwin, managing director of the technology center.

Seven technology firms have signed up to lease all of the new building's 12,000 square feet of leasable space, Baldwin said.

The tenants are Cambridge Research Associates, DSR Technologies, MIT-Lincoln Labs, Oceanit Laboratories, Orincon, SCIC and Solypsis.

The firms, along with those in the first phase next door, conduct high-tech research or other work, mostly in association with the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands.

Baldwin said two of the firms — Oceanit and Solypsis — will be moving from smaller offices in the first phase. There are renters interested in taking those vacated spaces, he said.

The tech center's first phase, at the corner of Waimea Canyon Drive and Kaumuali'i Highway, was built with federal money from the Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration to help the island's economy recover from 1992's Hurricane 'Iniki.

The new facility will cost $3.5 million. Baldwin said $2 million is from the Economic Development Administration, $500,000 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and $1 million from the state for land acquisition and site preparation.

The first phase, with a visitor center and shared videoconferencing facility, covers 7,500 square feet.

The new building will be west of the existing center, along the highway. They will share a driveway.