Underwater vehicles maker to lease incubator building unit

MIDDLETOWN — City leaders have approved a lease agreement with a Wallingford-based autonomous underwater vehicles manufacturer for office space at the business incubator building in the North End.

Exocetus Autonomous Systems, based on Research Parkway in Wallingford, will be relocating to a 3,500square-foot space on the ground floor of the facility, according to CEO Joseph Turner, who grew up in Middlefield and graduated from Xavier High School in Middletown.

Exocetus is a designer, manufacturer, and service provider of autonomous underwater vehicles and gliders that “believes in open concept vehicles and operations,” according to its website.

The lease is for 10 years, with an option to renew for another five.

In the first year, the company will pay $1,895 a month ($22,740 a year). That will increase every year until the 10th, when the rent will rise to $2,473 monthly ($29,676 annually).

Turner said the former Remington Rand factory is an ideal location for the company.

“The access to the Coginchaug, Mattabasset and Connecticut rivers gives us a way to rapidly test concepts in a water environment without having to drive all the way to the shore.”

The firm was subletting a unit from a larger company, the CEO said. “I looked at spaces up and down the I-91 corridor, and the R.W. Keating Building was really ideal. The city’s work at the R.W. Keating building is really interesting, and we’re happy to be a partner in revitalizing that beautiful old building.”

Turner’s family has been in the Middletown area for 30 years, he said. “I always loved the downtown area, and wanted a space close to that … and are happy to have a lively setting close to our office.”

Turner is a former naval nuclear surface warfare officer who “cut his managerial and leadership teeth on the extremes of the largest Navy ships (aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson) to the smallest Navy boats (Riverines),” the website says.

The new space will be used as an office, development lab and assembly space, Turner said. “Exocetus started as an underwater vehicle company, and is shifting focus to multi-domain autonomy for the ocean — that is, autonomous flying, surface and subsurface vehicles, and the software and platforms that allow them to operate at sea with little to no human intervention.”

The company plans to use the space to develop and test its new concepts, as well as assemble current products for our customers,” he added.

Joe Turner / Contributed photo Wallingford-based Exocetus Autonomous Systems will soon be opening a new site at the R. M. Keating Historical Enterprise Park, the city-owned incubator building at 180 Johnson St. Shown here is the company’s first vehicle on a deployment.