SDI will begin moving into its new headquarters

"SDI Health will begin moving Monday into its new headquarters here, where it expects to initially house about 500 employees and has room to eventually add another 200 to 300 people.

“Who knows,” said Andrew Kress, CEO of SDI, “it could happen this year.”

Kress wouldn’t elaborate but the company is growing, he said. SDI took an 11-year lease on 118,000 square feet of a newly constructed $25 million, 143,000-square-foot building developed by Exeter Property Group. SDI has an option to lease the remainder of the 25,000 square feet. The building is one of the few build-to-suit projects to get completed in the last two years as new construction has all but come to a standstill as a result of the recession.

In today’s market, a new office building is a rarity as banks and other lenders remain skittish about financing construction projects, even with a so-called credit worthy tenant and long-term lease in hand. This was especially a problem at the time SDI began its search nearly two years ago at the height of the credit freeze.

Exeter has a $372 million real estate fund at its disposal and was able to finance the new building without tapping a bank loan.

Kress anticipates SDI’s growth over the next three to four years to be from new and old clients as well as through acquisitions. The company collects and analyzes data for mostly pharmaceutical companies though it has added a more diversified client base as health-care reform and health-care costs have come to the forefront. To that end, SDI has expanded to serve government, insurers and other entities that want to track and measure health costs. It has also grown by buying companies. In July 2008, it bought Verispan LLC."