Friendly Skies For High Tech

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This spring, ground will be broken at Boston's Logan International Airport for what its developers claim will be the first high-technology industrial park located at an international airport in the United States. The complex, called the Massachusetts Technology Center, will provide high-tech companies with space for research and development, manufacturing, assembly, warehousing, and distribution of products -- all within easy access of air cargo and general aviation facilities. As a result, participating companies should be able to cut their ground handling and processing costs and reduce losses they now incur during shipment of parts and products between plant and airport.

In addition, the entire facility will be designated a Foreign Trade Zone. This is, in effect, a legal "island" created by the federal government to stimulate international trade. Products entering the zone from abroad -- or leaving it for foreign destinations -- are exempt from normal duties, excise taxes, bonding costs, and quotas. Only when the products enter the United States proper do they become subject to the customary fees.

Thus, for example, a manufacturer located in the center wouldn't have to pay entry charges on each imported part or raw material, only on the finished product as it comes into the United States. If the product is exported to another country, the manufacturer wouldn't have to pay any duties at all.

The entire complex will cover 90 acres. It is scheduled to take its first tenants in 1984 and to be completed by 1990, at a projected cost of roughly $100 million.

The Massachusetts Port Authority is a sponsor of the project, and officials are confident of its success. "The high-tech industry is going to be enthusiastic about this," says Massport executive director David Davis. "First of all, their product goes mostly in airplanes. Also, the Foreign Trade Zone feature is attractive."

Massport is also sponsoring the development of Boscom, a high-tech merchandising mart in Boston. The two projects aren't formally related, although Massport officials hope that they will be mutually supportive.

While the center promises obvious benefits for larger high-tech companies seeking to expand their foreign markets, it could also serve as an incubator for smaller, fast-growing high-tech companies, especially the start-ups along Boston's Route 128. "The smaller companies, the bootstrap outfits that are outgrowing their facilities, that are busting out of the garage they started in -- those companies can readily graduate to this," says Anthony Pangaro, general partner at Macomber Development Associates, the project's developer and owner. "We can accommodate smaller companies that are at the threshold of expansion.

William Foster, president of Stratus Computer Inc. in Natick, Mass., agrees that the center would benefit a company such as his. (Stratus is a three-year-old maker of general-purpose nonstop computer systems, with about $6 million in annual sales.) "In our case, [the center] would be a good concept," he says. "Most of our products are shipped out of New England, and the proximity to the airport is a great advantage."

Raymond F. McNulty, spokesman for GenRad Inc., headquartered in Waltham, Mass., believes that the center "will benefit technology-related companies across the board." GenRad does about $188 million a year in sales of electronic systems used in automatic test equipment. McNulty notes that medium-size companies like GenRad depend on visibility and cannot afford to be insular; the center could give them needed exposure. "Component companies would be doing business next to computer companies. You'd see the whole panoply of technology," he says.

In any case, the new facility should help Boston to maintain its role as a leading center of high technology.