Ansys to take more office space at Southpointe

May 9, 2018

Tim Schooley 

Pittsburgh Business Times

Ansys Inc., a publicly traded engineering software maker, is preparing to expand beyond its headquarters at Zenith Ridge within Southpointe II.

After moving into a new 186,000-square-foot headquarters four years ago, the company has now inked a deal to lease an additional 30,000 square feet in a neighboring building at Zenith Ridge, a three-building campus by Burns Scalo Real Estate that totals 486,000 square feet.

A spokesperson for Ansys (Nasdaq: ANSS) confirmed it has committed to taking space in a second building at Zenith Ridge, attributing the need to add office space to the company’s aggressive growth.

“Ansys is working with Scalo to ensure we have the ability to scale our growth in the region,” the spokesperson said in a prepared statement.

Offering little further comment, it remains to be determined when Ansys will move into its new space.

Jim Scalo, CEO of Burns Scalo, said the deal with Ansys puts Zenith Ridge at 100 percent full.

Ansys' expansion represents what’s been a rare announcement of late of a company taking more space at a Southpointe that’s been working to overcome a wave of cutbacks and consolidations by energy companies that flocked there in the early days of the Marcellus Shale boom in what’s been a prolonged slump in natural gas prices.

When Ansys first announced it was taking a building at Zenith Ridge in 2012, the company needed more space than its previous 107,000-square-foot headquarters, also at Southpointe, with the new building also allowing it to consolidate out of a 39,000-square-foot office at Station Square.

The company announced then that it was moving nearly 390 people from its previous headquarters and its Station Square satellite into the new headquarters, which were expected to accommodate more than 800 people.

Now, the company needs more room.

“They’re growing sooner than expected,” Scalo said.