Cleanrooms for rent
06/01/2001
Pittsburgh's South Side has tattoo parlors, universities, upscale dining and ISO-classified clean space for lease
by Mark A. DeSorbo
In the late 1940s, it wasn't uncommon to see Pittsburgh-area mill workers crossing one of the bridges over the Monongahela River to get to places like the Old Mill Site Tavern for a bite to eat, or a boilermaker after a long day of rolling steel.
Now, in the new millennium, contamination control professionals are doing the same, shedding their bunny suits to go for runs along the area's scenic Riverwalk; meeting up with friends and co-workers for fancy Spanish cuisine at the Mallorca Restaurant; or downing a couple pints of ale at Smokin' Joe's after a long day of photolithography.
 Plumbed for bulk gaseous nitrogen distribution, a nitrogen plant may be retained under a lease. |
Cleanrooms, let alone photolithography, are perhaps the last things one might expect to find in this eclectic neighborhood. But along with luxury apartments planned for the area, there is ultra cleanroom space available for rent, all within a stone's throw from swanky establishments like South Side Body Bazaar, for your entire tattoo and piercing needs.
"The South Side is the Georgetown of Pittsburgh," says Ronald J. Tarquinio, principal of Tarquincore, LLC, a real estate developer and cleanroom landlord.
 River Park Commons is housed in a 52-year-old building that once housed Gimbals, a department store. |
Controlled environments are and will continue to be very much a part of this Steel City neighborhood's landscape, thanks to Tarquinio, who owns the 52-year-old, 220,000-square-foot building on East Carson Street that was partially converted into a temporary research and development facility for Seagate Technology Inc. (Scotts Valley, CA), a disk drive manufacturer.
Seagate occupied the space after its renovation in January and is expected to vacate the 68,000 square feet it occupies and move into its permanent facility, also located in Pittsburgh, by March 2002. [See "Seagate finds fertile ground in Steel City, CleanRooms March 2001, p. 1]
Along with the Pittsburgh Technology Center on the other side of the river, Seagate typified the technological flavor of the South Side, a characteristic that Tarquinio is hoping to maintain by leasing the cleanroom space to start-ups and industries that may not have the working capital to sacrifice on a new cleanroom.
"This will give small industries and businesses the cleanrooms they need," he says.
"We see this as the opportunity to provide 500 to 1,000 square feet of cleanroom space along with office space and utilities. There's not too many state-of-the-art cleanrooms available for lease."
Known as River Park Commons, DBCM International Inc., a Vancouver, WA-based engineering and construction management firm, oversaw the renovation that contractor M.A. Mortenson (Minneapolis) began in August 2000 and completed in January 2001.
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Harold E. Hawes, president of DBCM, says the facility has about 16,000 square feet of bay-and-chase cleanroom space. About 1,500 square feet is ISO Class 4 (Class 10) space, while 4,000 square feet is designated ISO Class 5 (Class 100). The remaining cleanroom space, about 10,500 square feet, is ISO Class 6 (Class 1000). The facility also includes two dry labs, two wet labs, locker, mechanical and electrical rooms, as well as office and non-environmentally-sensitive rooms on the second-floor.
"Just the fact that there is a new facility with cleanrooms coming available in this part of the country is unique," Hawes says.
A radiant reuse
The post-World War II building that houses Seagate's temporary facility has survived the fading steel industry, was once warehouse space for Gimbals department store and the University of Pittsburgh medical center.
In order to be viable in the market, Tarquinio says the building had to be completely gutted.
"We were left with a shell, and we took it from there," he adds.
Hawes says it took about six months to renovate the facility. The project was complete two weeks later than expected, which is not bad considering some of the obstacles it presented.
"One of the concerns especially was the limited power supply," Hawes says. "We had to run a new dedicated service transformer from an independent source because there was not enough power in the existing grid."
With the Baltimore-Ohio train tracks at the edge of the property, vibration was also an issue.
Hawes explained that a train passes by every 15 minutes, causing "the earth to move." With such processes as photolithography going on in cleanrooms and the sensitivity of equipment like electron microscopes, passive- and active-vibration isolation stands and other devices were installed throughout cleanrooms and laboratories to counteract tremors.
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Another challenge was the quantity of chemicals Seagate needed to keep on hand. "Because it is a research and development facility, it had to flexible, so several types of chemicals needed to be available, which was a very large issue," Hawes says. "Most of the chemicals are in small quantities, but there was a great amount of effort to meet code requirements. Each [chemical] had different local, state and federal requirements, plus discharge had to be monitored and controlled. Test samples are taken all the time."
Latitude key R&D factor
Hawes says all the cleanrooms were built to be flexible, and every seven feet there are valves and outlets to move tooling easily.
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Along with ULPA filters and chillers from Trane Co. (Lacrosse, WI), Seagate's cleanrooms breathe through air handlers from CleanPak International (Clackamas, OR). Seagate also uses reverse osmosis and deionized water systems from US Filter (Warrendale, PA), which can handle more than a 15 gallons-per-minute of 18-meg water.
"The cleanrooms also have raised flooring, gasket-ceilings with horizontal, ceiling-hung re-circulating air handlers," says Hawes, "cleanrooms also have a ducted supply system, not pressurized plenum."
Positive airflow within the cleanrooms, he adds, is re-circulated and maintained at a temperature of 66 degrees Fahrenheit, ±2 degrees with an RH of 45, ±5%. Personnel wear full bunny suits and face masks depending on the process. "The cleanrooms are very stable and the temperature and the RH do not vary that much," Hawes adds.
Negotiable lease
The new Seagate facility is scheduled to open later this year. It will also have ISOClass 4 cleanrooms and employ about 90 people.
As for the temporary facility, Tarquinio says RO/DI water; compressed dry-air, acid-waste neutralization and treatment as well as emergency diesel-fired generators systems can be purchased from Seagate.
In addition, the facility is outfitted with full-coverage process vacuum distribution, voice and data communication cabling, including T-5 fiber-optic cabling and additional "dark-fiber" for future applications. The facility has also been plumbed for bulk, gaseous nitrogen and compressed dry air distribution, which may be retained under a lease.
It also features executive office suites, independent tenant-controlled HVAC, security systems with 24-hour access as well as break, meeting and lunch room areas.
As far as how much space can be rented as well as rental fees, Tarquinio says both are negotiable.
For more information, contact Ronald J. Tarquinio, principal of Tarquincore, LLC, at (412) 381-7433, fax at (412) 381-6793 or e-mail at [email protected].