Early January I wrote about Freightliner signing an 11 year lease with Koll Development for a 150,000 sq ft office in Fort Mill, SC. Freightliner plans to relocate 340 a sales and marketing jobs from Portland to Fort Mill, SC. (To review the post click the link = http://homesfortmill.com/fort-mill-news/freightliner-leases-150000-sq-ft-building-in-fort-mill-sc/) With this information, several people have asked what is happening with the rest of the Freightliner headquarters move? Why did Freightliner sign an 11 year lease if they plan to buy 300 acres of land in York County and build a new headquarters complex within the next 5 years? Are they really moving?

My sources have not heard of any announcements related to buying land or moving other than the news reports from last November. However they speculate that the 11 year lease has a possible early lease termination clause after five years. So I don’t think the 11 year lease announcement is any indication whether Freightliner has changed their mind on relocating their headquarters.

For the 340 Freightliners employees relocating, here is a current construction picture of the office building under construction in Fort Mill, SC.

Well it’s confirmed by a Koll Development Company, a commercial real estate firm, press release on December 18, 2007 Freightliner LLC has signed an eleven year lease with Koll Development for their 150,000 SQ FT Intellicenter building under construction in Fort Mill, SC. Freightliner will occupy the entire building. The building is located on Deerfield Drive road near the intersection of the new 160 Bypass and Gold Hill road near I-77. The building is under construction and Koll estimates the occupancy date to be sometime in July 2008. Google maps link: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=fort+mill&ie=UTF8&ll=35.059668,-80.954175&spn=0.011294,0.018239&t=h&z=16&om=1.

Here is an artist rendering of the completed building.

Here is a picture from Koll’s construction camera mounted at the job site. The picture shows the construction progress as of January 10, 2008.

If you are interetested in checking in from time to time to see the construction progress click on the link below to view a real time video picture: http://www.kolldevelopment.com/cam_intelcharlotte.asp.

Link to Koll’s press release: http://www.kolldevelopment.com/kdc_press_121807.html .