Swiss Re unveils plans for green office building
Swiss Reinsurance Co. will build an energy-efficient office building next to its present quarters in Fort Wayne at 1700 Magnavox Way, Swiss Re and developer Hanning & Bean announced Wednesday.
The project, expected to cost between $13 million and $15 million, is not expected to change the company’s Fort Wayne workforce of 250, Swiss Re spokeswoman Alayna Francis said.
“The existing building is physically not suited to our needs,” Francis said in a telephone interview from her New York office.
She said the building particularly lacks space for data storage.
So Swiss Re is building an 80,000-square-foot, three-story structure.
“All the employees in this building will be within 30 feet of natural sunlight,” said Bill Bean, whose company is overseeing the project.
The design is intended to take maximum advantage of the energy of the sun and the Earth. Glass in the building will have glazing so it will catch the sun’s heat and be better insulated. The building also will have a geothermal heating-and-cooling system, Bean said.
Groundbreaking for the building is expected in March or April, Bean said, and the structure will be completed by early 2010.
Mayor Tom Henry and Rob Young, executive director of the Fort Wayne-Allen County Economic Alliance, applauded Swiss Re’s announcement. They said the project proves the company is committed to staying in Fort Wayne.
“It helps to retain an employer that’s important to our community,” Henry said.
Young said keeping employers in the county and helping them grow is most of his job.
Francis said Swiss Re never considered leaving Fort Wayne.
Zurich, Switzerland-based Swiss Re bought the Fort Wayne reinsurance operation from Lincoln National Corp. in 2001. Lincoln National created Lincoln Reinsurance in 1912.
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