Barnett Tech Park adds more BPO space, reclaims title
THE OPERATORS of Barnett Tech Park, which provides space for operators in the business process outsourcing or BPO sector, spent US$10 million this year to construct two buildings spanning 100,000 square feet. It will take the total productive capacity of the park to 315,000 square feet, said Mark KerrJarrett, managing director of Barnett Limited. The additions will once again make Barnett Tech Park the largest in Jamaica, a title the Musson Group briefly claimed when it announced its tech park project in Kingston near the end of summer.
The Barnett park already houses VistaPrint, which was the first client to take space in the complex in Montego Bay; Conduent Jamaica, formerly Xerox prior to its acquisition; and Advanced Call Center Technologies, ACCT. The latter two companies will be taking the additional space developed by Kerr-Jarrett this year.
“We are building out the park pretty much on a demand basis,” said the developer on Monday. “We are currently talking with other clients for more space,” he said.
One of the new buildings, spanning 50,000 square feet, was handed over to ACCT in July, while the other, also 50,000 square feet, will be handed over to Conduent by December, Kerr-Jarrett said.
1,000 SEAT CENTRE
The new buildings are each designed to accommodate 1,000 call centre seats.
VistaPrint operates from its own building at No. 1 Megabyte Drive inside the tech park.
“To be clear, VistaPrint purchased Lot 1 in the Barnett Tech Park and built their own state of the art facility of approximately 115,000 square feet. They anchored the tech park and showed tremendous confidence in Jamaica and our vision for the Barnett Tech Park by purchasing the land and building their own facility — and they deserve recognition for that,” Kerr-Jarrett said.
The park sits on land owned by Barnett Limited at Fairfield in Montego Bay. The US$10 million spent this year ramps up the total investment in the park by two-thirds to US$25 million.
“Not including VistaPrint, as they own their land building and developed it themselves, Barnett Limited has invested in excess of US$25 million in the Barnett Tech Park and that does not include the value of the land,” Kerr-Jarrett said.
He said the tech park has the capacity for 800,000 square feet of productive space and 200,000 square feet of space for commercial and support services.
In September, the Musson Group officially opened its tech park at Half Way Tree Road in Kingston, which will span 236,000 square feet when completed. At the time, the group described the development as the largest BPO facility in the English-speaking Caribbean. It will be managed by an American company called Alorica, which oversees 36 call centre operations globally.
We are building out the park pretty much on a demand basis. We are currently talking with other clients for more space.