TECH PARK TO OPEN; Stennis will welcome its first tenant next month

BYLINE: PRISCILLA FRULLA, pfrulla@sunherald.com

Stennis Technology Park will welcome its first tenant at the beginning of May.

The first building in the technology park on Mississippi 603 near Stennis Space Center is about 95 percent complete, said project spokesman Robbie Maxwell. The top floor of the three-story, 30,000-square-foot building has been leased to NVision Solutions, a company now located within the space center that works on geospatial technology integration.

Maxwell said he expects another 30,000-square-foot building and a 10,000-square-foot building to be built soon. After that, "the buildings will be built as the need increases," he said.

The park is designed to attract technology companies and other businesses with links to Stennis Space Center. Maxwell points to an advantage businesses in the technology park will have over the space center.

"Our office park will be easier for customers to access," said Maxwell. "They won't have to go through security checkpoints."

Developers also want to build single-family residences on "a couple hundred acres" and eventually two hotels and two restaurants.

"It's going to be a beautiful modern park where you can live and work," said Maxwell.

The 750-acre property is bound on the west by Stennis International Airport, on the east by Mississippi 603, on the north by Stennis Airport Drive and on the south by Interstate 10.

The building under construction was started before Hurricane Katrina but was brought back down to a slab by the storm. Maxwell said three different contractors have worked on the building to get it to this point.

Construction costs on the building came in around $145 per square foot, said Maxwell. That is about $4.35 million. Rodney Pilot of Mobile and Miles Jones of Fairhope, Ala., are the developers.

Building space will be leased for between $16 and $19 a square foot depending on which floor the tenant wants, said Maxwell.