Developer plans to turn Eero Saarinen's Bell Labs HQ into New Urbanist town center

Somerset Development aims to turn the once glorious Bell Labs headquarters into a mixed-used town center, Fortune reports. 

Designed by Eero Saarinen in the late 1950s, the two-million-sf, steel-and-glass building was one of the best-funded and successful corporate research laboratories in the world.

According to Fortune, President of Somerset Development, Ralph Zucker, swooped in when he found out that a deal to sell the headquarters to Preferred Real Estate Investments, which was planning on demolishing the site, crumbled.

Because there isn’t much demand for massive office buildings, and Zucker has no interest in turning it into a museum, he is planning instead to convert the iconic structure into a vibrant town center filled with restaurants, shops, and offices.

“An urban oasis in the middle of the suburbs,” Zucker told Fortune. “As well as a monument to American ingenuity.”

Read the full story on Fortune.