After breaking ground on a major expansion in April, IDEXX Laboratories Inc., a provider of animal health diagnostics and information technology services based in Westbrook, Maine, reports that their project on the new East Building is on schedule and on budget.
IDEXX Laboratories is the cornerstone of the Portland region's bioscience community. "With this expansion, the region's international image grows and evolves as a great place to do business in the bioscience community," said Tom Turner, executive director of the Greater Portland Economic Development Corporation.
When complete this three-story 107,000 s/f building will provide 300 workstations, a wellness center, a new cutting edge dining venue, conference rooms and extensive outdoor patio space. This $35 million expansion of the company's Westbrook headquarters will allow the global veterinary medicine producer space to add as many as 300 new jobs in the coming years, said company spokesperson Betsy Richards.
For IDEXX, the expansion is more than just additional square footage. The new space exemplifies the company's guiding principles through environmentally sustainable building practices and core designs, which promotes a collaborative workspace fostering greater opportunities for innovation for their employees.
LEED Certification
According to Richards, sustainability at IDEXX is a core practice, and the new building will exemplify this LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) status, a national standard for green building performance that also takes into account community design, construction, operations and maintenance. Richards added, "When we broke ground last April, we announced that we hoped to achieve LEED Silver status. We are very pleased to announce that we are now on track to receive LEED Gold status."
Workplace 2020
The expansion also offers IDEXX a chance to adapt the workspace and prepare for "Workplace 2020," a new model, which is transforming the ways in which human networks are supported. The model enables cultural change and fosters collaboration while using new technology and enhancing the overall employee experience.
During the past year, Richards reports that they have developed a number of innovative workspaces at IDEXX Drive. "We have learned that good workspace design can encourage connections and foster new ideas. Collaborating with others doesn't create more work, but instead improves the quality of our results, stimulates process change, enhances the speed of decision making and provides for greater business alignments," she added.
They have also learned that collaboration patterns differ by work styles and every group or team has different interaction needs. Workspaces will be designed to meet these unique needs through a balance of both collaboration and focus spaces, and leveraging digital communications, employee mobility and work flexibility.
Richards said, "We believe that this approach brings us closer to a "One IDEXX" philosophy of collaboration which grows out of an environment of mutual respect, open-mindedness, and the willingness and ability to work together."
Construction is on schedule and should be completed by August 1, 2013.