Satellite dishes could sprout at technology park

A subsidiary of an international satellite communications company may become the first client at Allegheny Energy's Friendship T

December 03, 2002|by TARA REILLY

HAGERSTOWN - The international satellite communications company that may become the first client at Allegheny Energy's Friendship Technology Park would bring 50 new jobs to Washington County, Senior Planner Tim Lung said Monday night.

The Washington County Planning Commission unanimously approved the site plan for the project submitted by Mountainside Teleport Corp., a subsidiary of Intelsat Global Service Corp. in Washington D.C.

Intelsat Global Service is a subsidiary of Intelsat Limited, which is headquartered in Bermuda.

Lung said the site on 40.3 acres would contain a system of four satellite dishes that are 27-feet in diameter and eight dishes that are 54-feet in diameter. A 257-foot-by-154-foot facility would house a data center and a back-up energy plant. Six 30-foot-by-10-foot concrete equipment shelters would be built.

Richard Reichenbaugh, a project consultant, estimated the satellite dishes to be 70-feet high from the ground to the top of the dishes.

Guy Fletcher, Allegheny Energy spokesman, said the agreement with Intelsat Global Service is not final. He said he could not comment further.

"We do not yet have a final deal closed at this point," Fletcher said. "We anticipate it will happen in the near future."

Fletcher said there is an agreement in principle.

The site is on the east side of Md. 632 north of Rench Road. The company would be the first to locate in Washington County's recently approved Office, Research and Technology zoning district.

Tim Troxell, director of the Hagerstown-Washington County Economic Development Commission, has said his office has been working to lure Intelsat Global Service here for more than two years. He would not say whether the company was offered incentives by local or state government.

Intelsat Global Service officials decided last year to expand its ground facilities, and it made sense to look in the Washington area, spokeswoman Allison Scuriatti said. Intelsat Global Service's Washington office has 800 employees.

Intelsat provides global communications for telecommunications carriers, broadcasters, global finance companies and other corporations that do business around the world, according to its Web site at www.intelsat.com. It has customers in more than 200 countries and territories, Scuriatti said.

Customers include AT&T, France Telecom, British Telecommunications, Internet service providers and television broadcasters.

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