The undeveloped land around the existing campus, much of it grassy fields and woodland, has been a point of discussion for years. In 2015, prior to IRG purchasing the property, the city had been in talks with IBM about buying the property for park space. Those discussions never materialized, however.Vlaeminck said IBM had intentionally left large swaths of the site undeveloped for security reasons, even building small hills around the site to block lines of sight to the facility.At its peak in the early 1990s, IBM had 8,100 employees working at the Rochester campus, a number that has dwindled to about a quarter of that today.“Because the utility demand IBM once had was so large, so dramatic, we can develop the additional 200 acres without really posing a new utility demand,” Vlaeminck said.The proposal from IRG would not affect any of the existing 3.1 million square feet of office and warehouse space on the campus. That space is now used by a mix of tenants, including IBM, which leases back about a third of the complex. Read More
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