DAVID HENDERSON
William A. Berry & Son has named David Henderson vice president for Connecticut operations. Henderson, who is a 20-year industry veteran, will work out of Berry’s New Haven office.
Formerly a project executive with Skanska USA Building, Henderson has overseen a wide array of construction projects, including Three Rivers Community College in Norwich, and the New London Science & Technology Magnet High School in New London, among others. Previously, he worked at Morganti Group, where he was the project engineer for a major addition to the Yale University School of Medicine and several building initiatives at Danbury Hospital, including its Linear Accelerator and CAT Scan facility.
Fairfield Office Vacancy Up
Fairfield County saw a negative overall absorption of 227,734 square feet of office space in the second quarter, with an overall vacancy rate of 13.2 percent, according to Cushman & Wakefield.
Year-to-date, the county has seen an overall negative absorption of 540,274 square feet. In the second quarter, Class A space saw 199,378 square feet of negative absorption, while Class B space fared better, but still in the red, at 28,356 square feet of negative absorption.
Overall average rent for both Class A and Class B space in Fairfield County stands at $33.24. There is currently 901,457 square feet of Class A space under construction in the county, according to Cushman & Wakefield.
Starbucks Closes Five
Starbucks will be closing five stores in the Greater Hartford area, including locations in East Windsor, Fairfield, Hartford, South Windsor and Windsor Locks.
The company announced July 1 that 600 stores will close between the end of this month and the first half of the fiscal year 2009.
EMCOR Signs NASA Contract
The EMCOR Government Services (EGS) business of Norwalk-based EMCOR Group, a mechanical and electrical construction, energy infrastructure and facilities services company, has been awarded a contract valued at mare than $170 million for facility operations and maintenance support at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The laboratory is managed by the California Institute of Technology.
The contract provides for an initial term of three years and permits the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to extend the contract term for up to seven additional years. Approximately 160 employees from EMCOR and certain local subcontractors will support the contract.
EMCOR Government Services will perform and be responsible for a wide range of services at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, including maintenance support to the space flight operations facility, diagnostic services including thermography and vibration analysis, HVAC operations and maintenance, custodial services, grounds maintenance, and elevator maintenance. Additionally EMCOR will provide services relating to disaster response, energy and water conservation, and operation of power measurement systems.
In addition to EGS, the EMCOR team will include local EMCOR subsidiaries, and support from EMCOR’s Facilities Knowledge Center, which is EMCOR’s technical services center that employs online, real-time facilities management tools and technology to maintain and improve clients’ building operations, reduce costs, and increase efficiency.
Britell Named To Board
United Rentals’ Jenne K. Britell Ph.D. has been unanimously elected chairman of the company’s board of directors. Britell, a director since 2006, is chairman and chief executive officer of Structured Ventures, advisors on financial services and product strategy to U.S. and foreign companies.
Britell has been chairman and chief executive officer of Structured Ventures since 2001. From 1996 to 2000 she was a senior executive of GE Capital where she most recently was executive vice president of Global Consumer Finance and president of Global Mortgage and Consumer Banking, and also served as president and chief executive officer of GE Capital, Central and Eastern Europe.
