The building trades and general contractor Walbridge-Aldinger are giving Compuware what they want: a headquarters-in-a-hurry.

The first steel beams were placed on their 15-story, $350 million Detroit headquarters building last July, and by next month, the frame should be topped out, said Walbridge Project Manager Dean Reader.

By the end of the year, Compuware employees are expected to be working in the lower levels of the building at Woodward and Monroe, while the trades complete the upper floors.

The entire project, which includes two parallel towers in a v-shape and a 2,300-space parking deck, is expected to be complete by mid-2003. The headquarters building and adjacent garage will include about 53,000 square feet of retail space.

"We've been pushing the schedule, but we're doing it safely and we're doing quality work," said Reader. "We're happy, and the owners are happy."

The one million square-foot Compuware headquarters building stands atop the old Kern Block, just south of the old Hudson's building. The new headquarters building will consolidate the operations of nine existing Compuware facilities in metropolitan Detroit.

The Compuware building will anchor approximately $2 billion in planned new development in the area. Practically outside the Compuware building's front door will be a 2.5-acre park, the focal point of the mixed-use Campus Martius project, which will include five buildings and cover five blocks.

Compuware Corp. is a computer technology firm that employs more than 12,000 information technology workers worldwide.

LOCATED AT Monroe and Woodward in Detroit, the Compuware headquarters is going up quickly.