Time Warner Cable buys former WorldCom building

CNY Business Journal (1996+), Jul 08, 2005 by Tampone, Kevin

DeWITT - Time Warner Cable, Inc.'s Syracuse division has a new building that will house the company's local technology hub.

The hub, or regional data center, houses the infrastructure and technical workers who support the company's Road Runner cable Internet service and digital telephone service. The site is the former WorldCom/Intermedia building.

"It's basically the operations center for all our high-speed and data services," says Jeff Unaitis, a spokesman for Time Warner Cable's Syracuse division.

The company closed on the new building, located at 6350 Court Street Road, June 16. The purchase price for the three-story, more than 67,000-square-foot building was $3.5 million. The seller was 6350 CRR Holdings, LLC.

Unaitis says a move-in date has not been determined. The data center is currently located in a multi-tenant building at 5015 Campuswood Drive in the Pioneer Business Park.

The center has been there since 1997.

The division's local headquarters is at 6005 Fair Lakes Road in East Syracuse.

The center now has about 7,000 square-feet and simply needs more room, Unaitis says. One of the major reasons for the new building purchase is the pending acquisition by Time Warner Cable of assets from Adelphia Communications Corporation.

Time Warner, Inc. and Comcast Corporation announced in April that the two companies would buy all of Adelphia's assets for a combined $12.7 billion in cash. Time Warner's portion of the deal is $9.2 billion in cash and 16 percent of the common stock of Time Warner Cable, which will go to Adelphia stockholders.

Adelphia filed for bankruptcy protection in 2002 shortly before authorities charged John Rigas - the company's founder, chairman, and chief executive officer - with stealing the company's assets for personal use. A court convicted Rigas and one of his sons of securities and bank fraud in 2004.

The court sentenced Rigas to 15 years in prison in June. His son, Timothy, the company's former chief financial officer, received 20 years.

The deal for Adelpbia's assets must receive approval from regulatory agencies and the court handling the company's bankruptcy. Unaitis says the deal will probably close in the first quarter of 2006.

The deal also will give Time Warner's local division new subscribers in Utica, Auburn, and Buffalo, which is one of Adelphia's biggest markets, Unaitis says. When Time Warner begins to serve those customers, they will all have access to digital phone and cable Internet, which will mean more work for the data center.

The center supports more than 500,000 Road Runner customers and 125,000 digital phone customers in the company's Syracuse, Rochester, Albany, Binghamton, and Portland, Maine markets.

The extra space is needed mainly for equipment, Unaitis says. The center employs 10 to 12 people now, a number that will probably grow as more Road Runner and digital phone subscribers are added thanks to the Adelphia deal.

The company has no estimate on how many additional employees will be needed.

"The extra space is necessitated primarily by the equipment the center has, not personnel needs," Unaitis says.

The data center will not use the entire 67,000 square feet at the former WorldCom building, he adds.

The extra room was one reason the building was attractive to Time Warner.

The Adelphia purchase will mean expansion for other areas of the company as well. So the prospect of having room to grow is a bonus, Unaitis says. Time Warner has no firm plans yet to move any other departments from the local division's headquarters to the new building.

But even having extra space for training and meetings will be helpful, Unaitis says.

"We have people here for training all the time," he says. "They don't necessarily need to be in the headquarters for that training."

The building needs some work to make it compatible with Time Warner Cable's technology. Details of the work have not been determined, Unaitis says.

Time Warner's local division serves more than 300,000 subscribers. It employs 1,100 people, including 650 in DeWitt.

The entire company has more than 10.9 million subscribers in 27 states and in 2004 had more than $8.4 billion in revenue, according to Time Warner, Inc.'s annual report.