City hustling to get Prioria Robotics into former GRU warehouse
This photo of an abandoned warehouse and the artist's rendering of its proposed renovation from Skinner Vignola McLean Architects are part of a city of Gainesville document.
"The city is in a race to turn a former Gainesville Regional Utilities warehouse into the headquarters for local technology firm Prioria Robotics.
For the city, the project is the first piece in the planned redevelopment of the Power District south of downtown, an area that includes roughly 16 acres that was the GRU operations center before a move to a new $52 million campus on North Main Street.
With its lease in the Wells Fargo building soon to expire, Prioria has given the city a January deadline to have the approximately 22,000-square-foot warehouse building along Depot Avenue renovated and ready for move in, according to the city's Community Redevelopment Agency staff.
If the building is not ready, the terms of a proposed lease now under negotiation between the city and Prioria will include financial penalties against the city, said Lynn Janoski, the finance manager of the CRA.
“We don't foresee that being a problem,” she said. “We anticipate them being in by the end of January.”
With lease negotiations ongoing, Prioria CEO Bryan da Frota declined to specify the amount of the potential penalties.
“The penalties envisioned are pretty minor...they are not meant to be financially significant,” he said.
Prioria, which specializes in the development of small unmanned aircraft, won a $2.8 million contract with the Canadian government last year. The company has also received approval for state and local tax incentives for bringing high-wage jobs to the area. Prioria has expanded to 40 employees with the expectation to double in size to a staff of 80 within three years, da Frota said."
Click here to read the complete Gainesville Sun article.
No comments:
Post a Comment