WOBURN - Motorists and passers-by have observed the skeletal structure to the rear of the Trade Center Park off Route 128 for nearly a year now and the buildings being enclosed.

In turn, a second building to the front of the lot is underway.

The first of the two buildings to be completed is the one to the rear of the site and will be completed by January 1, 2008; the second will have an opening in July 2008.

Both are on schedule, noted President and CEO Dennis Clarke, a Winchester resident, of Cummings Properties in a talk to the Woburn Rotary Club at the Holiday Inn Select in recent days.

Clark also noted $1 million in roadwork improvements on the interchange and approaches to the mark, mainly in the Main Street-Elm Street approaches should start next week.

The 150,000-square-foot building to the rear will house the Middlesex County Superior Court, which will relocate just about everything from Cambridge (except the jail) to Woburn on January 1 while renovations are conducted at their tower in Cambridge.

The lease, noted Clarke, is for five years but there are other provisions like after three years an extension is possible if need.

The front building on Route 128 will go into the regional office park rental pool with no name tenants at this point.

"We are looking for one upscale restaurant," said Clarke of the mix, "as well as a casual restaurant." Other service businesses like a health club are a strong possibility.

The modernistic-looking building will have a futuristic-looking facade facing Route 128 (I-95) with connecting porticos to the rear building.

The seven-story, steel frame and foundation were completed in less than 90 days after construction began earlier this year and a topping off ceremony took place in April.

As stated earlier in the year, Cummings Properties said the $30 million venture is "on schedule" as the summer approaches and appear very confident the January 1, 2008 opening is reachable.

Some signature-styled, wide windows, said Clarke, will be the first thing to hit first-time visitors to the center. The center and the area is expected to generate some 5,500 cars a day, so approaches and lead-in roads and lights had to be upgraded.

"The piles of traffic studies and reports are this high and this wide!" smiled Clarke, moving sideways and upward with each mention of the reports.

Clarke said Cummings Properties has traditionally put a high premium "on quality people" and the policy has paid off, he said. Many Woburn and local people, he said, are employees of Cummings. "Cummings Properties has always put a premium on hiring quality people."

Individuals such as Woburn's Jamie McKeown, who passed away several years ago, is one example, he said, as well as Robert Venezia, the general field manager. Clarke also noted long-time Woburn real estate company owner Joseph Crowley, a member of Woburn's School Committee for four decades and a former, one-year employee at Cummings in the 1980s, will be returning on a part-time basis to their marketing division.

"At the courthouse, will have a lot of people coming and going, such as those in the District Attorney's office and even some probate," said Clarke.

Not to be overlooked, he told the Rotarians and members of the business community at the Holiday Inn, is the fact there are hefty taxes paid to Woburn on the buildings, as well as personal property taxes and excise taxes. "It will all go to helping the regional economy.."

On the issue of public transportation, Executive Director Paul Meaney of the Woburn Business Association asked about MBTA service. Clarke said approaches will be made to the MBTA to add service to the area. One major bus line now comes down through North Woburn and the area.

Clarke's biography

Clarke grew up in Winchester and graduated from Winchester High School, and then Harvard University in 1990.

He served as a licensed commercial insurance broker for a subsidiary of London-based Jardine-Matheson, and then as a marketing coordinator for Gordon Brothers Partners, Inc.

In 1992 he became general manager of a small newspaper chain, Community Weeklies, Inc., which was under Cummings Properties' former ownership.

In 1996 Clarke left the Fidelity organization, which purchased the newspaper group, and returned to Cummings Properties, LLC as its operations manager. He became vice president-operations in November 1996 and co-president in 1999. He became president and chief executive officer in November 2004.

Clarke is actively involved in both the Woburn and Winchester communities as a past director of Winchester Chamber of Commerce, director of Woburn Business Association, trustee of Cummings Foundation, and a corporator of Winchester Hospital.

He is married to Alicia (Angeles), also a Winchester native, and they have three young sons and one young daughter.

A former athlete, Clarke was a New England Golden Gloves boxing champion and a Boston Globe Football All-Scholastic designee.

(See: www.cummingsproperties.com)