Bob Radcliff, marketing director at Alpha Circuits, tells GlobeSt.com that the move into the 38,000-sf first phase is done. In spring 2002, another 19,000 sf will deliver followed by the remaining 21,000 sf within a year.

Alpha Circuits previously occupied three buildings with an aggregate 25,000 sf in Sugar Land Business Park, located at 12502 Exchange. Radcliff says they were pushing out the walls at Alpha's Sugar Land location. The relocation was forced because Sugar Land Business Park simply didn't have any growing room for the company. Radcliff says Alpha Circuits wanted to stay in the same general area because of the quality of life.

"We chose Ft. Bend County primarily because of the installed base of high-tech workers to draw from," says Ricky Williams, company president, "and because of the advantageous tax base." Southwest Techniplex is within two miles of Sugar Land Business Park.

Alpha Circuits relocated about five years ago from the Katy Freeway area of Houston to Ft. Bend County, says Radcliff. In the newest relocation, the firm cut a deal to end its leases at two small buildings, totaling 9,000 sf, at Sugar Land, but is looking for tenants to take over the 16,000-sf main structure. Keith Lloyd of the Houston office of Grubb & Ellis Co. represented Alpha Circuits at Southwest Techniplex. Trammell Crow used in-house representation to broker the deal.

Alpha Circuits is an outsource contract manufacturer that provides electronic manufacturing services to original equipment makers nationwide. Alpha, which employs 140, is practically an anomaly these days since it's managed to double revenues in the past year despite the steady decline that has hit most of its competitors.