By CLAYTON PARK

When Microsoft and Boeing want to stage a splashy event to roll out a new product or plane, they often turn to The Production Network Inc. (TPN), an event and exhibits design/management company based in Fremont.

So leave it to TPN to make headlines when it recently announced plans to move to make way for construction of a new Quadrant Corp. building.

That's because TPN doesn't just intend to move its business. It will also take its whole building, a 12,000-square-foot wooden warehouse built in 1928, which will be rolled on to a barge and floated down the ship canal to TPN's new site, on the north shore of Lake Union, just east of the Fremont Bridge.

The quarter-mile move is expected to take two full days, including loading and unloading the building to and from the barge. Eight people will work to prepare the warehouse for the move and a crew of 12 people will conduct the actual loading and unloading, using cables and pulleys. Olympic Tug and Barge Inc. will supply the barge, which will pull the warehouse at a speed of 1 mile-per-hour.

Richard Belcher, managing director of marketing for TPN, said the move is scheduled to take place either the last weekend of February or first weekend of March. He explained that moving the building will save his company approximately $1 million, compared to the cost of constructing a new building. The new site is currently a paved area being used for parking, next to the Burke Gilman trail.

Suzie Burke, owner of the historic warehouse, which once housed part of her late father's old business, the Burke Millwork Co., sold the building to TPN's CEO John Vadino for grand sum of $1. The building, which is located just west of the Fremont Bridge, would otherwise have been demolished. "We're saving a part of old Fremont," said Belcher.

The warehouse, which is built of heavy timber and weighs 400 tons, will be placed on a newly-poured foundation and will be converted this summer into a two-story office/administration building.

The building currently measures 190 feet in length and 35 feet in height at the peak of its pitched roof. It will need to be shortened by about 5 feet in height and 20 feet in length to fulfill conditions that the City set in approving the move. "We'll also be putting in a lot of windows," said Belcher.

Belcher added: "We're an event company so we look at situations like this with a unique perspective. Moving a building like this is not much more different than converting the Kingdome into a stage show."

Remaining in Fremont, where TPN has been located for the past 7 years, was important to the company, said Belcher. "We really like Fremont and want to stay," he said.

TPN, which employs 55 people, also occupies a 300,000-square-foot building on Leary Way that will remain where it is.