Shown are the panelist from athenahealth, Wise Construction, and Charles Rose Architects.

Boston, MA On January 28 IFMA hosted the first networking event of 2016 with athenahealth. athenahealth moved to the Arsenal on the Charles in 2005 as one of the many tenants that occupied the historic campus. Ten years on, the health care technology and service company is now on the verge of transforming the 30 acre site. Athenahealth’s hi-tech and progressive vision for the historic site in Watertown, is the heart of the master plan by chief executive Jonathan Bush. His vision was a thriving IT campus with multifarious activities from business to shopping, among the 19^th century structures. The diverse amenities will serve the project’s private-public partnership, developing the community connection. New landscapes and pedestrian pathways are threaded among the historic brick buildings and along the Charles River. Employees and the community,among others will be able to intermingle, raising the project above an office park to a public resource and destination for residents of Watertown, Boston, Cambridge and beyond. Wise Construction was the event sponsor and member of the core team with Charles Rose Architects.

Shown (from left) are: Joe Flynn, Meagan O’Hara and Tom Palange

On February 24 the next hosted event by IFMA was with Jibo, Inc., the creator of the world’s first Social Robot for the Home. Jibo, Inc. was founded by Cynthia Breazeal, a pioneer of social robotics and human robot interaction from the MIT Media Lab, and is staffed by robotics and consumer electronics leaders. JIBO located it’s first permanent headquarters at 230 Congress Street in September 2015, to design, engineer, test, and market their highly innovative Home Robot.

Panelists included Steve Chambers, JIBO CEO, who needed all of the above to support the culture of this new company and be able to attract the kind of talent he needed to build JIBO and get it to market in a hurry. Benjamin Sutton, Commercial Real Estate Broker with NAIHunneman. Ben has worked with many tech start-ups who have chosen the Financial District to grow their companies, due to access to talent pools, amenities, public transportation, and the availability of space that’s suited to their needs. Elizabeth Spatola, Dyer Brown Interior Designer, who managed the design of the project, working with a fast track schedule and the unique challenges that come with creating the right look and feel for a company whose culture was just in the formative stage.