BB&T will be the anchor tenant in the five-story office building planned for 101 N. Third St. Contributed photo/LS3P Associates

BB&T will be the anchor tenant in a five-story office building downtown that will begin construction this summer.

The building, at 101 N. Third St., will be the first Class A office structure built downtown since the Bank of America Building in 2009. Class A denotes the highest quality office space.

BB&T will occupy 34,000 square feet of the 68,000-square-foot building. The current building on the site, which houses a PNC Bank branch, will be demolished.

Groundbreaking is scheduled for July 1 and completion is expected in June 2015, according to the developers, Will Purvis and Brian Eckel of Cape Fear Development Partners, a subsidiary of Cape Fear Commercial.

The project, which was announced in January, received its Technical Review Committee approval May 13.

Cape Fear Commercial is managing development and leasing of the building, which is designed by architectural firm LS3P Associates. Barnhill Contracting Co. is the builder.

Sharing the first floor with BB&T will be Dunkin' Donuts, the developers said.

The site has been designed with three bank drive-thru lanes and 14 on-site parking spaces. The developers are also working with the city for access to the adjacent Second Street parking deck for tenants' use, Eckel said.

"We have experienced a great surge in activity over the last 12 months in the Wilmington office market and believe that more users will play their part in shaping the new look of the downtown market by making the (central business district) their place of business," Eckel said in a statement.

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BB&T to anchor new downtown Wilmington office building

Get ready, D.C. The Trumpification of our city begins tomorrow when Donald Trump and his Trump Organization take control of the Old Post Office building.

Per Trump's deal with the General Services Administration, the historic 114-year-old building on Pennsylvania Avenue will turned into a 260-room high-end hotel, which will also feature a spa, conference facilities, restaurants, and a museum remembering the building's history. The renovations will cost $200 million.

In a statement, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who passed the Old Post Office Building Redevelopment Act in 2008 in order to get the GSA to redevelop the building, said that the redevelopment of our Old Post Office building is on track, not only to tastefully transform the historic building into a unique hotel, but also to bring hundreds of jobs and millions in tax revenue to the District." She added that "we have worked tirelessly for well more than a decade to get GSA to put the beautiful building to good use. The beginning of construction is the tangible reward for the city we have been working for.

When the Trump Organization will have access to the building tomorrow, they'll begin construction on it, which will reopen as a hotel in 2016. The lease of the building is between D.C., the federal government, and the Trump Organization. According to a release, D.C. will get "$100 million in tax revenue over a 10-year-period, and the project will yield 700 construction jobs and 300 permanent jobs."

Let's just hope Trump keeps his reality shows in New York.

The rest is here:
Trumpification Of D.C. Begins Tomorrow

Colleen Schmidt, CTV Calgary Published Thursday, May 29, 2014 1:58PM MDT Last Updated Thursday, May 29, 2014 4:15PM MDT

Crews have reached the half-way point in the demolition of a crumbling wall at an office building in the core and city officials say a maintenance bylaw is in development to ensure the upkeep of Calgarys buildings.

Bricks started falling into the parking lot below from the east faade of a building at 608 7th Street S.W. on May 20 and firefighters and engineers were called out to assess the situation.

The wall was bowing and within a few days a large hole had opened up in the middle.

The city directed the buildings owner to hire an engineering and construction crew to safely remove the wall and work to demolish the faade brick-by-brick began on Tuesday.

The Citys Safety Response Unit continues to monitor the removal of the seven storey wall and says about 50 per cent of the bricks have been removed so far.

A temporary exterior envelope is being installed as the brick is removed and an interior wall will be put in place to protect the building from further exposure to the elements once the external cladding is done.

The city says that a maintenance bylaw is in the works to ensure the upkeep of Calgarys buildings.

We want to remind all owners and property managers that this week serves as an excellent reminder of why its so important to properly maintain your property for public safety, said Marco Civitarese, Chief Building Official with The City of Calgary. The Alberta Building Codes primary purpose is to provide safety, and to limit the probability of injury due to structural failure. Owners and property managers should perform preventative maintenance and inspections to ensure public safety and building performance.

Civitarese says owners are liable for ensuring due diligence is performed to maintain the upkeep of their buildings and that they can be fined under the current building code for creating an unsafe condition.

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Brick-by-brick removal of broken wall half done

Published: Thursday, 5/29/2014 - Updated: 1 minute ago

BY TOM TROY AND IGNAZIO MESSINA BLADE STAFF WRITERS

Toledos Michael V. DiSalle Government Center, the high-rise building that houses city, county, and state offices, is being offered for sale to the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority as one possible solution to a dispute about the cost of rent.

Port authority board members confirmed on Wednesday that they have been approached by the state government about acquiring the 22-story structure on Jackson Street between Erie and Huron streets.

The price could be as little as $1, but would saddle local officials with the $4 million annual operating expense, plus the cost of catching up with possible deferred maintenance.

Weve simply been approached just preliminarily about looking at the possibilities, said Nadeem Salem, chairman of the port authority board of trustees. We will evaluate to see if this is something really good for the port authority, for the community, if its something worthwhile. We dont know really the extent of what the buildings going to need.

Board member William Carroll said the buildings maintenance issues could include paint and improvements to the heating and air conditioning system.

I know theres a lot of deferred maintenance; I worked there, Mr. Carroll said, referring to his tenure as director of development under former Mayor Jack Ford.

Double the rent

The city was notified in March that the state Department of Administrative Services, which manages the building, intended to double the rent, from $6 per square foot to $13.01. The citys 172,000 square feet would cost more than $2.2 million annually. The rent hike outraged Toledo officials who said theyve already lost more than $17.2 million to cutbacks in state funds since 2011.

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State-owned office building could be sold

The Lincoln Harris real estate firm has begun construction on the two 10-story office towers it announced late last year for the SouthPark area.

John W. Harris III, son of Johnny Harris, the firms founder and CEO, said Thursday that Lincoln Harris closed on the Capitol Towers at Carnegie property last week.

Were live. Shovels are in the ground, dirt is getting moved and were going at it, said Harris, the firms executive vice president and chief operating officer.

The project will go up on just under 6acres behind Piedmont Town Center. It consists of two 10-story office towers to be located at Carnegie Boulevard and Congress Street.

Each will comprise 240,000 square feet. The site plan calls for the two office towers to sit at either end of the block formed by Congress Street and a loop of Carnegie Boulevard. The towers would front Congress Street, with a seven-story parking deck between them.

The project also includes retail and restaurant space. The first office tower is slated for completion in late 2015. Harris declined to say how much the towers will cost.

The project doesnt yet have an anchor tenant. Local real estate developers in recent years have been reluctant to build office towers without a major tenant for fear they might otherwise struggle to get all the space leased.

John Harris said the firm feels confident Campbell Walker, the lead leasing agent on the project, and his team can get the buildings leased.

Companies are looking to expand as the economic recovery accelerates, Harris said, and there are few large blocks of contiguous office space available to them in SouthPark.

The demand is there, and we wanted to make sure we were the first group out of the ground, he said.

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Construction launches on Lincoln Harris two SouthPark office towers

At a construction site in the Japanese city of Kawagoe, worker Fan Xiuyu says hes too busy to miss the wife and six-year-old child he left behind in China.

I came to Japan to make money and learn advanced construction techniques, said Fan, 29, a native of Taishan, who says his job making and installing metal ducts for Haruta Kogyo Co. pays him three to four times what he earned in his homeland. The working environment in Japan is much better than China. Its clean and Japanese colleagues are willing to teach me when I ask them for help.

With a dwindling population, Japan needs more people like Fan to build and run venues and hotels for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The nation imported about 50,000 workers annually over the past five years. That needs to rise to 200,000, according to a Bloomberg poll of 14 economists -- twice as many as the public would accept. To satisfy the demand, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would have to break down centuries of resistance to immigration.

Even 100,000 immigrants would do little to ease the labor population decline and even that would be politically difficult, said Yasunari Ueno, chief market economist at Mizuho Securities Co. in Tokyo. Immigration is unpopular, especially in the provinces. Abe still seems to flinch at the idea of accepting foreign workers on a large scale for fear of losing public support ahead of elections in 2015 and 2016.

Workers labor on a construction site in Tokyo. Utilizing foreign workers is one of main issues being actively discussed at governments economic and fiscal council, an advisory committee for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to work out the governments growth strategy. Close

Workers labor on a construction site in Tokyo. Utilizing foreign workers is one of main... Read More

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Workers labor on a construction site in Tokyo. Utilizing foreign workers is one of main issues being actively discussed at governments economic and fiscal council, an advisory committee for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to work out the governments growth strategy.

Japan is caught in an economic pincer. On one side is a declining population thats sapping the worlds third-largest economy of workers. On the other are some of the most restrictive immigration policies of a developed nation.

Japan will lose four out of every 10 workers by 2060, shaving as much as 0.9 percentage point off potential growth -- more than half last years expansion, according to Cabinet Office projections. Most Japanese oppose accepting more foreign workers into the country to offset the decline, according to a poll in April by the Yomiuri newspaper.

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Japans Olympic Dream Rests in Hands of Foreign Workers

Plans to build a new General Assembly office building adjacent toVirginia's historic statehouse are already prompting changes in downtown Richmond, years before the first ceremonial shovel of dirt is turned on that project. The Capitol Square improvements, approved by lawmakers and the governor earlier this year, are expected to cost around $300 million through 2019.

But that project is throwing a wrench in the plans of another project, nearly a decade in the making.

We're one of only five states in the nation that doesn't have a memorial honoring public safety workers who have died in the line of duty, said Matthew Gray, executive director of the Virginia Public Safety Foundation (VPSF).

The Virginia Public Safety Memorial broke ground in early January, and despite big plans in Capitol Square, it's still on track to be completed by the end of 2014.

Gray says it's Virginia's responsibility to move forward as soon as possible on the memorial to honor the 843 men and women who paid the ultimate price. But doing that means finding the memorial a new home, fast.

Plans to demolish and rebuild the General Assembly Building would have caused a delay of four or five years, Gray said. Our plan is for the memorial to be moved to a site about 50 yards to the east of the original location.

New plans would put the memorial next to the Patrick Henry building, home to the office of Governor Terry McAuliffe and his cabinet. The plans have yet to be finalized, but the Virginia Public Safety Foundation says it is still on track to finish on time, finally honoring our fallen heroes.

Tuesday night, Governor Terry McAuliffe participated in a memorial service at the capitol to honor law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty during the past year. Their names will join hundreds of others on the memorial when it's completed later this year.

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New General Assembly Offices Will Hinder Public Safety Memorial

At Wiley Plaza, a vision of what a 100-year-old department store/office building renovated into 73 apartments and a couple of floors of commercial space is starting to come into focus.

Thats especially the case on the second floor, where new interior walls have been framed, Sheetrock hung, joints mudded and sanded, a coat of primer applied and baseboards and trim nailed into place.

And in the southwest corner, a show apartment will be finished within another month. Kitchen and bathroom cabinets, sinks and a bathtub have been installed and doors hung. The walls have been covered with a coat of taupe paint.

Although the show apartment will be finished, interested renters still wont be able to see it for months because of the ongoing construction.

Jay Manske, one of the principals in the development, and Keatin Herder of Key Construction, said the first apartment is being finished out now so that all concerned can sign off on the color selections before they get any farther into the job.

On Tuesday, bankers involved in financing the project took their monthly tour of the progress.

The third floor isnt far behind the second. Walls have been framed, drywall hung and bathtubs installed. Workers were applying joint compound to the drywall and sanding it down. Meanwhile, cabinets and doors have been brought up to the floor in preparation for their installation.

On the fourth floor, nearly all the drywall has been hung, but the job of applying joint compound hasnt started yet.

On the fifth floor, framing for interior walls is complete but the drywall process has barely begun, because workers are still installing plastic pipe leading to kitchens, bathrooms and utility closets.

On the sixth floor, workers are sweeping up dust and small bits of debris from the interior demolition and installing interior wall studs.

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Wiley Plaza apartments coming into focus

ALLEN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--KONE, a global leader in the elevator and escalator industry, has committed to be the lead tenant for the $26 million first phase of AllenPlace, a master-planned, 22.5-acre, 700,000 SF, five-building Class A office park being developed by Houston-based Sentinel Capital, LLC, in partnership with Centra Partners, LLC and Triad Real Estate, along North Central Expressways east side between West Bethany and West McDermott Drives in Allen, TX.

KONE, which currently leases office space in Allen and a testing facility in nearby McKinney, will occupy all of the first building at AllenPlace and a portion of the second building in the first phase of development where they will house their supply operations, research and development department and other product and installation support functions.

KONE has been growing our capabilities in Allen in order to support our elevator and escalator business in North America, said Ron Bagwill, Vice President and Director of Supply Operations for KONE Americas. This new location, with the additional office space and improved testing facilities, will allow us to continue this trend.

Jeff Patman, Senior Vice President with Site Selection Group, handled all economic incentive and lease negotiations for KONE. Ben Appleby, Partner with Dallas-based Paladin Partners (formerly with Houston-based PM Realty Group), represented Sentinel Capital on the KONE transaction and will handle the leasing at AllenPlace moving forward.

KONEs lease will kick off a 102,000 SF Class A office building that will contain 77,000 SF of vacant, contiguous spec office space for other tenants, according to Appleby.

The Allen Economic Development Corporation has worked in partnership with Sentinel on the project, and incentivized both the real estate transaction and KONEs expansion, said Dan Bowman, Allen Economic Development Corporation Interim Executive Director. This project exemplifies Allens track record for competitive incentives and will create additional spec office space close to premier shopping and dining destinations.

Allen is a highly sought after municipality for corporate-users looking to relocate their operations to North Texas. The problem that we have run into recently is a lack of available product for users looking for over 20,000 SF, said Appleby. With this first phase of AllenPlace underway, we will be able to provide a grossly underserved product to larger office users looking at Allen, TX.

AllenPlace allows us to continue to be responsive to the needs of larger corporate tenants requiring Class A office space, said Allen Mayor Stephen Terrell.

Construction will be underway this year on the seven-acre first phase of development, and KONE is expected to take occupancy in the first half of 2015, according to Greg Nelson of Sentinel Capital. The AllenPlace complex is being designed by the architecture firm Goulas + Associates, Inc.

ABOUT KONE

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Sentinel Capital Kicks off AllenPlace Development with KONE Deal

by JANET ST. JAMES

WFAA

Posted on May 26, 2014 at 5:26 PM

IRVING Just off Highway 114 and Royal Lane in Las Colinas, the Texas Center for Proton Therapy looks like an ordinary office building under construction.

On the inside, however, it is a complicated concrete cavern designed to cure cancer.

Its complex, explained project manager Sean Ashcroft.

Proton therapy is a form of radiation treatment that delivers precisely-targeted radiation to tumors without damaging the surrounding healthy tissue. The therapy can help patients experience fewer side effects, and therefore maintain quality of life before and after treatment.

Dallas-Fort Worth is the largest metropolitan area in the United States without a proton therapy center. Houston and Oklahoma City both have the technology available.

Proton therapy is delivered through a 220-ton magnetic particle accelerator called a cyclotron. The cyclotron destined for the North Texas center is in a massive freighters cargo hold right now, being shipped from Belgium.

Delivering the power of proton in precise doses requires some unique construction techniques.

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Proton therapy: A new weapon against cancer in North Texas