ESPN Adds Some Growth Space

(From The Hartford Courant -- By Don Stacom)

ESPN is expanding its facilities in the former SUPERIOR ELECTRIC BUILDING on MIDDLE STREET in BRISTOL, CONNECTICUT, and plans to relocate about 250 workers there this year.

The sports cable network will lease about 110,000 square feet for its information technology department and other offices, according to spokesman MIKE SOLTYS. Workers will be relocated from offices at its main campus and from a leased building on DOLPHIN ROAD that ESPN will vacate.

ESPN maintains a videotape library in space it already leases at 383 MIDDLE STREET, the one-time headquarters of SUPERIOR ELECTRIC. The new space it is leasing there will accommodate about 250 workers, although that figure could rise to 400 as ESPN grows, Soltys said.

The move won't create jobs immediately, but will allow for employment increases in the future, he said.

MAYOR GERARD COUTURE said the ESPN move will spur business growth in that section of the city. ESPN employs about 3,000 workers in Connecticut, up from about 1,700 five years ago. About 2,700 of those employees are in Bristol, chiefly at its sprawling campus on ROUTE 229, about a mile south of THE SUPERIOR ELECTRIC BUILDING.

"This expansion will create an incentive for other companies that are interested in joining Bristol's business community, which in turn will serve as a huge benefit to the entire city," Couture said in a statement.

SUPERIOR ELECTRIC employed 700 workers in Bristol at its peak in the 1960s. But business dwindled, and SUPERIOR closed the plant and moved out of the city in 2001.

The former SUPERIOR ELECTRIC property borders the site of the city's planned SOUTHEAST BRISTOL BUSINESS PARK. City officials said Bristol will pay to install a new traffic signal nearby to help control the additional traffic from ESPN as well as from future industrial tenants at the business park.

THE MAGUIRE GROUP, the consulting engineering firm working on the business park plan, will meet with the state traffic commission to discuss other improvements.