Red Hat Expansion Begins

Public officials and onlooking employees gathered in front of their Tech Park West office building on Monday morning to inaugurate the groundbreaking for a new 100,000 square foot building next to its current 75,000 square foot location on Littleton Road.

"What a great partnership between the town, the state government, the federal government and a company," said Red Hat spokesman Paul Cormier.

Cormier was the company's first employee in Massachusetts, and never believed that Red Hat would get to where it is now in the Commonwealth back when he was commuting to North Carolina.

"When we first opened a small office here, we put in the Herald that someday we'd maybe have 70 employees, we never imagined we'd have anything like this," he said.

The current Red Hat building in Westford holds about 300 employees, but is now expected to add over 100 more within the next two years, and required to add at least 181 within the next five years to retain tax assistance offered by the state on top of a TIF agreement between Red Hat, the state and the town that was approved by voters last fall.