Meditech plans Freetown office with 800 employees at Riverfront Business Park

FREETOWN – Medical Information Technology Inc. plans to build a 180,000-square-foot office building in Freetown and hire more than 800 people, the company announced Monday afternoon.

Construction on the building in Riverfront Business Park is expected to start next year and finish in 2013.

Westwood, Mass.-based Medical Information Technology develops software for the health care industry. Commonly called Meditech, the privately held company says it serves more than 2,300 customers worldwide and had revenue of $393 million last year.

“Meditech is widely known as a company that gives back to the community, and this is a fantastic opportunity for Freetown, for Fall River, and for our entire region with the new jobs and the much needed tax revenue,” said Lawrence N. Ashley, the chairman of the Freetown Board of Selectmen.

Meditech said it plans to purchase about 135 acres in the business park. The facility would become the company’s seventh, complementing its headquarters and Bay State offices in Canton, Fall River, Framingham, Norwood and Westwood. The company also keeps an office in Atlanta.

The company’s decision to move into the Freetown business park was hailed by elected officials in Fall River, which borders Freetown.

“The expansion and creation of new jobs for citizens of Fall River and the Greater Fall River area will not only help reduce our region’s unemployment rate but will help attract the attention of other Massachusetts and non-Massachusetts companies looking to locate in Greater Fall River,” Fall River Mayor William Flanagan said.