UMass Memorial moving 500 workers to upgraded downtown towers

SAM BONACCI UMass Memorial President and CEO Dr. Eric Dickson announced Monday that 500 jobs would be brought to downtown Worcester by the end of 2017.

Sam Bonacci The 100 and 120 Front Street office towers are set to receive a $36 million renovation.

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By Sam Bonacci

Worcester-based UMass Memorial Health Care will bring 500 information-technology employees downtown following the $36 million redevelopment of 100 and 120 Front St. in downtown Worcester.

The downtown location, with a lease signed for 74,000 square feet, for UMass will include hundreds of new jobs, UMass Memorial President and CEO Dr. Eric Dickson said at a Monday morning announcement, as part of the company’s $700 million switch to a new electronic health record system.

The employees would be in place by the end of 2017, with UMass Memorial to begin using 20,000 square feet of space as a training center before the end of 2015. Dickson did not specify how many of the 500 employees at the downtown site would be new, but said the decision to have the office sited in downtown Worcester was made with the continuing redevelopment of the city in mind.

“Five hundred new jobs in downtown is going to make a huge difference,” Worcester Mayor Joe Petty said at the announcement.

The 500 UMass employees will join 1,250 currently working within the two downtown office buildings that were recently purchased for $32.5 million by Franklin Realty Partners.

Franklin announced Monday the two properties will undergo $36 million in upgrades, bringing the total cost of the project to $70.1 million between the property acquisition and redevelopment. The redevelopment will cover a new ground-floor façade, upgrades that will allow UMass Memorial to move in and major updates to the communal areas of the properties, said Gary Schwandt, a principal with Great Point Investors LLC that handled the financing of the project.

Part of the redevelopment will be funded through $1 million in a MassWorks infrastructure grant. The grant was part of a $3 million announcement made Monday by Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Jay Ash. The grant will also cover $2 million in reconstruction of Quinsigamond Avenue leading from the Route 146 interchange to downtown Worcester.