IBM to move into Lowell complex originally built for company that saw itself as an IBM killer

By adamg on Fri, 05/14/2021 - 3:07pm

Wang, We're Gunning for IBM

The Boston Business Journal reports IBM will be consolidating its Massachusetts operations in rented space at CrossPoint in Lowell, a complex that originally opened in 1976 as the headquarters of Wang Laboratories, which, at its peak, had 33,000 employees.

Also see:
Fred the Baker briefly joined the battle.

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Business

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Lowell

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Comments

Memories

By StillFromDorchester on Fri, 05/14/2021 - 4:33pm.

My dads office had all Wang computers .
I remember the guy from Wang who did repairs (or whatever)was a regular fixture at his office. I don't know if that was good or bad...lol

Cross point is gruesome

By Bob Leponge on Fri, 05/14/2021 - 9:05pm.

Every time I drive past those monoliths, I wonder what it must be like to work deep in the windowless interior; that feeling of your soul being sucked out of your body each morning as you arrive at work.

Why? Is Crosspoint thicker

By anon on Sat, 05/15/2021 - 3:40am.

Why? Is Crosspoint thicker than a typical office building? To me it looks like it has plenty of window access due to all the zigzags.

Salon

By cybah on Sat, 05/15/2021 - 7:54am.

Long time ago my favorite hair stylist moved to a private salon inside Cross Point. Its not that bad, the building has been modernized.

And its not window-less.. its very 1970s office building with narrow windows.

What got me was the vast amount of parking near it. You'd think at some point a deck would have been put in so the lots could be redeveloped.

And location is top notch. If you live in Lowell or along Route 3, this is super easy to get to.

Not just Route 3

By ScottB on Sat, 05/15/2021 - 8:36am.

But also Route 495 which makes it an easy drive from just about anywhere in the Merrimack Valley or even west to Fitchburg or Worcester.

I've worked in plenty of big office buildings and most of the time, the rank-and-file are in the middle of the building away from the windows anyway; only managers get the privilege of being able to see out from windows.

IBM is in a bunch of former DEC buildings right now anyway -- and DEC also saw itself as an IBM killer. I think they're mostly in the former LKG campus in Littleton.

I think some of that parking area has been repurposed for retail/restaurants, but doing something like a mall is a challenge with both the Burlington and Pheasant Lane Malls being 10 miles away, plus the Mall at Rockingham Park being about 15 miles away. It's a crappy location for residential since it's stuck between Rt 3 and the Connectah.

Lots

By perruptor on Sat, 05/15/2021 - 9:20am.

What got me was the vast amount of parking near it. You'd think at some point a deck would have been put in so the lots could be redeveloped.

There was some development of the lots. That whole area where Outback and the Showcase Cinema are used to be parking. It wasn't used by the workers in Wang Towers, because there weren't enough of them to need it. I used it to teach my wife to drive.

The group who bought the property after Wang folded sold off that area, and made several times the $525K they'd spent to buy the whole property. They made out like bandits, and 4 years later, some of them sold out. At that point, the property was assessed at $103M. I don't remember if that was before or after they sold off the parking lot.

The Showcase was the subject of a NIMBY lawsuit brought by the owners of the Rte3 Cinema, on Rte110, just the other side of Rte3. That dragged on for over a year, but they lost, and the Showcase was built. Rte3 Cinema folded, as expected, and that property was used to build a new Stop&Shop, replacing one in Chelmsford Center. That particular move never made any sense to me, because there was and is a Market Basket right across the street. The S&S is still there, though, so what do I know?

yes

By cybah on Sat, 05/15/2021 - 4:12pm.

After I posted my reply.. and went off to buy garden stuff.. I realized that I was wrong, some of the lots have been redeveloped. I do remember the showcase and the outback being there.

I guess I was thinking more office or high rise buildings. Not single story commercial.

No demand

By perruptor on Sat, 05/15/2021 - 5:26pm.

Cross Point has never been fully occupied since Wang left. Office space is a glut in the area generally.

Parking lots

By Ex-Wang Guy on Sun, 05/16/2021 - 3:10pm.

At its peak, Wang definitely used the entire parking lot area --all the way to the helipad, which was where the Showcase is now. I got in fairly late most days, and I would just head to the helipad area because there was so little chance of getting a space closer to the towers. Sometimes, there were only one or two spaces available, even back there. On days of the quarterly Wall Street analyst meeting or of annual worldwide sales manager meetings, security would rope off a big section of the lot nearest to the towers, and then there wasn't enough parking for all the regular employees so a bunch of us would have to drive to park in the lot for the "mini-towers" about a half mile away.