The Clifton Park IT firm nfrastructure is investing $5 million in a new headquarters and advanced technology center in Menands that CEO Dan Pickett expects will ramp up from 500 people to 1,500 in just two years.

Pickett, who grew up in Mechanicville and built nfrastructure into the region's largest IT services company with customers like Google, Facebook, Nike and Nordstrom, said his company is leasing 50,000 square feet of space in the former Two Guys building.

Employees began moving into the space, designed in the model of Silicon Valley firms, on Sept. 1. It will feature a 5,000-square-foot lab that will be used to test and showcase the technology of its suppliers.

The company, which will maintain its current Clifton Park location, already has 100 openings to fill.

"It's a very cool space," Pickett said during a talk he gave Thursday at an event at the New York BizLab held in conjunction with Clarkson University.

Nearly 12 months ago, nfrastructure was acquired by a Seattle firm called Zones Inc. that sold IT hardware. The merger was complementary because nfrastructure provides IT services.

The Menands location is part of an effort by Zones to grow its annual revenue from $2 billion to $3 billion within the next three years.

Pickett says that while such a merger would typically mean his company would lose jobs and influence, Zones is looking to nfrastructure to fuel a major portion of the company's growth, and it sees the Capital Region as an ideal location.

"This is going to be our second headquarters outside of Seattle," Pickett said.

Pickett was aware that another Seattle-based tech firm, Amazon, is looking to build a second headquarters and that the Capital Region like other parts of the country will be trying to win that project, which promises $5 billion in investment and 50,000 employees.

Pickett said the scale of Amazon's proposal, known as HQ2, was much larger obviously than what nfrastructure is planning, but he believes that local economic development officials were right to try and win the project. Amazon put out a public request for proposals with a deadline next month for submissions.

"That will be an uphill battle for here," Pickett said.