The Daily Gazette
October 14, 2001

LATHAM – BlueShield of Northeastern New York plans to move its headquarters next year from Wolf Road into a new building a few miles away.

The health insurance company on Friday announced its intentions to occupy an 80,000 square foot building to be erected in the Century Hill Plaza office park just off the Northway in Latham.

About 400 people work at the Wolf Road headquarters of BlueShield, which is a subsidiary of Buffalo-based HealthNow New York, Inc. The company expects to move to its new home next summer.

"As we look toward the future, we need to be certain that BlueShield is positioned to handle continued growth and success", said Leslie Baker, vice president of sales and marketing, in a press release. "We need to find office space that could accommodate our growing business".

BlueShield does not plan to hire more people immediately upon moving into the building, but company officials said the new space will allow for more employees in the future. Even though the new building will have roughly the same amount of floor space as the current one, the layout will provide for more workers.

"[The Wolf Road} building was really built as a multi-tenant space," said Linda Soltis, a company spokeswoman.

BlueShield has leased the Wolf Road building for 15 years. Company officials did not know what plans the landlord has for the space when it becomes vacant.

When it moves, BlueShield will be the third area health insurer to move into newly constructed headquarters within about one year"s time. Capital District Physicians" Health Plan opened its new corporate home in Albany this summer. MVP Health Care expects to move into its new building in downtown Schenectady next month.

BlueShield"s decision to relocate to Century Hill Plaza marks the second major tenant signed by the office park this year. This summer, the New York State School Boards Association announced plans to move into a 60,000 square foot office building.

That building, which should be completed in December, will be the second of four planned for the office park. Construction on the BlueShield building will begin next week with the goal of finishing by August 2002. Work on a fourth building with about 75,000 square feet of space is schedule to begin next year. "We are already negotiating several leases on that building, too" said Kevin Bette, president of First Columbia, the office park"s developer.

Bette said First Columbia"s plan for the gradual development of the office park is going smoothly. He said the park"s location, near two major regional highways (the Northway and Route 7) and the heavily populated suburbs of southern Saratoga County provide a marketing strength.

"It really makes an attractive location for the types of companies we want to bring in", Bette said.

In addition to announcing the relation of its BlueShield headquarters, HeathNow also said Friday it has received state approval to begin serving 27 new counties in central New York.

Through its BlueShield subsidiary, HeathNow has been serving 18 counties in and around the Capital Region. Another subsidiary has served eight counties in the Buffalo area.

"Now we"re closing the bookends" Soltis said