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The four-story structure, noted for its lightened environmental “footprint” made “green” by several built-in factors, is expected to be move-in ready in late January, according to Russell Schweiss, public affairs manager. Transfer of the multiple departments and their personnel is scheduled in phases and anticipated to be completed by the end of March, he added. In addition to consolidating collaborative functions in a single site and thereby encouraging enhanced efficiencies, the move will vacate space that may be eliminated as rental expense or converted to other uses or razed to allow added mining or, in the case of one of South Hillsborough’s most historic and recognizable structures, discussed at length. The new Mosaic office center is located on the south side of Fishhawk Boulevard about a quarter mile east of the Bell Shoals intersection in a new section of the massive Newland Communities development. The rectangular building is steel framed with concrete walls and designed with an abundance of windows for natural light, Schweiss noted. The facility is expected to serve as a sort of anchor in the eventual “town center” planned by the developer, he added. The new facility, painted white to deflect the sub-tropical sun’s rays, necessarily includes paved parking areas for employees and visitors, the public affairs manager pointed out, but also will feature landscaping designed to demonstrate reclamation choices implemented to restore a mined area to a natural environment suitable as habitat. The project represents a $20 million investment, he said. Inside, the office center’s work areas will consist mostly of work stations surrounded by glass-topped partial walls to provide a measure of privacy while also preserving an openness across the floors, Schweiss said. It will feature an audio system providing a “white noise” background that helps drown out disrupting sounds, he said. What few private offices are planned will be clustered in the centers of the floors, he added. The interior design allows for conference rooms, an employee kitchen and a lobby accented with photos exhibiting the phosphate mining and multi-product manufacturing company in action. The building also will be “wi-fi” equipped, giving employees the opportunity to take a lap-top computer, for example, out to an exterior patio to work wireless and in solitude, Schweiss said. IT or information technology personnel will be the first to relocate to the new facility, Schweiss noted, ensuring that the computer systems on which so many departments rely are up and ready for them. Following in sequence will be the permitting, environmental and accounting teams, along with the commercial department which handles the various marketing endeavors related to the array of products and the supply chain responsible for the logistics of moving materials around company sites in the region. Schweiss said he anticipates the public affairs section will be the last to relocate in March. The consolidating teams and departments will be moving from such sites as the NetPark office complex on East Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa, from Mosaic’s Pierce installation in Polk County, from the Ft. Lonesome mine in the far southeast corner of Hillsborough County and from the Gibsonton area plant on the north shore of the Alafia River. While the relocation is not expected to have a major impact at the Pierce facility, the Ft. Lonesome office building, now several decades old, is to be razed and the land under it mined for the remaining buried phosphate rock, Schweiss said. Similarly, processing plant operations at the Gibsonton site will not be affected by the move, although some of the more recently expanded office space behind the original two-story office building may be converted to another use, possibly to a training center, he added. It is the iconic, imposing, soon-to-be empty structure facing U.S. 41 at the entrance to the Gibsonton plant that now is the subject of debate, Schweiss indicated. Built in the 1920s, long before a widened Tamiami Trail or a paralleling interstate highway, before elaborate port facilities to the north or boating communities like Apollo Beach to the south, the building dubbed “The Mansion” has stood as the solid symbol and public face of a growing industry – as well as of sustaining major employers – for nearly a century. Designed to emulate upscale, turn-of-the-century housing, the building has sheltered and witnessed the multiple phosphate company ownerships that have charted the industry’s local history, including Cities Service, U.S. Phosphoric, Gardinier, Cargill, IMC and, currently, Mosaic. A decision about disposition of the historic structure has not been made, the public affairs manager said. Meanwhile, Mosaic managers also are considering whether to conduct an open house at their new Fishhawk facility during the busy holiday season. The building has been certified as a LEED “Gold Level” project because of its natural light, openness, use of recycled and environmentally friendly building materials plus provision of recycled water for irrigation and choice of native plant life, Schweiss noted, adding it would be easier to demonstrate the lighter footprint before it is occupied. Copyright 2009 Melody Jameson © Copyright 2008 by The Observer News Publications and M&M Printing |
