By Joan F. Simoneau,
Community Reporter
Marlborough – A Fortune 500 company, Quest Diagnostics, Inc., ?is considering opening a new laboratory complex on Forest Street in Marlborough which conceivably could bring 1,200 new jobs to the city.
Mayor Arthur Vigeant has asked the City Council to approve a fifteen-year Tax Increment Financing (TIF) proposal for Quest. The company is interested in leasing 200,000 square feet of space at the location.
“This proposal is a significant economic development coup for the city of Marlborough as it will bring an estimated 1,200 permanent, full-time jobs to a facility that has been largely vacant since 2008,” Vigeant said in a communication to the council.? “A Fortune 500 company that does more than $7 billion business annually, Quest specializes in clinical diagnostic testing and technology.”
Vigeant said that he has been working with Council President Patricia Pope and Ward 1 Councilor Joseph Delano and Ward 2 Councilor Richard Jenkins, who served as an ad hoc TIF committee, in assessing the recommendation.
The 15-year tax financing package, if accepted by councilors, will begin July 1, 2014 and end June 30, 2029, according to a communication from Timothy Anderson, Quest's managing director, to Vigeant.
“In addition to the local level TIF, Quest is also pursuing state- level incentives through the Massachusetts Life Science Center,” Anderson said. “The local and state tax incentives will mitigate the generally higher costs of doing business in Massachusetts.”
If the proposal is accepted, the New Jersey-based company plans to consolidate local operations into the Marlborough facility. That would require moving several hundred employees from existing laboratories in Cambridge and Worcester.
The 200 Forest St. complex, formerly owned by RCA, Digital Equipment Corporation, Compaq and HP, is now owned by Atlantic Management LLC. The property is on 109 acres off of Interstate 495. ?Atlantic Management is simultaneously asking the city to approve a proposal to rezone and redevelop the site into a district that would allow for commercial office space, retail shops and restaurants, a hotel and residential units. The two existing vacant buildings on the campus were built in the 1970s and contain 750,000 square feet of commercial office space.