Credit Suisse, one of the top 10 real estate investors in the world, have announced they will build a $200 million 31-storey office tower on the old stock exchange building site in the 400-block of Howe Street.

As one of the top 10 real estate investors in the world, Credit Suisse is proud to make its first investment in British Columbia, Director of Credit Suisse Real Estate Rainer Scherwey said today.

That building will be LEED platinum certified. LEED is a rating system that categorizes green buildings.

There are also six other office buildings under construction in the city, but even these spaces will not satisfy the demand for office space in Vancouver.

The citys vacancy rate is currently at 5.5 per cent. Compare that to Midtown Manhattan, which is about 8 per cent and San Francisco, which is the tightest commercial market in the U.S., at 7.6 per cent.

Downtown Vancouver is now near the bottom of the vacancy rate of any major city in North America.

The demand for new buildings is rising very quickly,Mark Renzoni,CBRE Canada President and CEO, said. Tenants are looking for new sustainable environments for their work space.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson hopes these new buildings will help end the vacancy concerns.

The seven new towers that are still under construction will provide more than 2 million square feet of new office space.

Shaw Media, 2014

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New building in downtown Vancouver will help to ease office vacancy concerns

COLUMBIA A six-story office building, 193 housing units and four new roads could be part of the first construction at the Discovery Park development unfolding on Columbias south side.

The Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of two development plans and rezoning of 15 acres of Discovery Park's 185-acre total area. The Columbia City Council will vote on final approval.

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The proposal from Trittenbach Development, a company owned by the developers of the Brookside apartment complexes, would redraw the zoning lines within the property to meet the lot's current boundaries.

The development company plans a mix of shopping, office and housing at the site, which was annexed into the city in 2004.

The company plans to build:

The plan might not meet the city's requirement for stormwater drainage, city planner Pat Zenner said. The company must still submit final stormwater protection plans to the Public Works Department.

Mike Hall, the engineer overseeing the project, said construction is expected to begin this spring.

Supervising editor is Adam Aton.

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Columbia planning and zoning board approves Discovery Park development

VANCOUVER -- A building boom downtown is creating much-needed office space in Vancouver, city officials say.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson helped break ground Thursday on The Exchange, a $200-million, 31-storey Credit Suisse office tower in the financial district, one of seven buildings now under construction downtown.

Robertson heralded the projects as an end to the citys business vacancy woes, as Vancouver remains one of North Americas tightest markets for office space.

Vancouvers vacancy rate for Class A office space sits at 5.3 per cent. That compares with 8.7 per cent in Montreal and 9.7 per cent in Edmonton. But according to Cushman and Wakefield, Vancouvers vacancy rate is projected to jump to 7.7 per cent this year and to 10.5 per cent in 2015.

When it comes to the strength of Vancouvers office market, weve come a long way in the last five years. Robertson said. A few years ago our economy was being held back by a lack of space, we had a critical shortage and its wonderful to see the market respond.

He said the city has approved as much office space in the last four years as in the previous decade. Up until recently, the city was projecting a critical shortage of office space by 2031 if land-use policies remained the same. Robertson said new zoning bylaws enacted in 2009 helped get the new towers off the ground. The seven towers under construction downtown will total 2.18-million square feet of new office space.

He said Credit Suisses decision to build from the ground up in Vancouver signals that international corporations realize the city is one of the strongest office markets in North America.

The Exchange, which will be joined with the old Stock Exchange building built in 1929 at 475 Howe St., will be the first LEED Platinum conversion of a heritage building in Canada. LEED Platinum is the highest designation for sustainable building design from the Canada Green Building Council.

It is the first B.C. venture for Credit Suisse and will provide 369,000 square feet of office space, or enough space for 1,700 workers.

The tower will not only add much-needed office space in the downtown core but also contribute to the citys goal of becoming the greenest city in the world, Robertson said..

Originally posted here:
Building boom hopes to ease Vancouver's tight commercial real estate vacancy rate (with video)

This is a rendering of the proposed legislative office building, to be built next to the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul. (Courtesy of Minnesota Department of Administration)

Authorization for a new state Senate office building fit with the general purpose of the tax bill into which it was inserted last spring, and in any case, former state Rep. Jim Knoblach has no right to sue to stop construction, an attorney for the state argued Wednesday in Ramsey County District Court.

Judge Lezlie Ott Marek heard more than an hour's worth of arguments from both sides on Knoblach's suit and said afterward that she would issue a written ruling as soon as possible.

The state is pushing for dismissal and has asked for a quick ruling because construction of the $90 million office and parking project north of the Capitol is on a tight schedule. State budget officials have said they won't sell the bonds for the project until the lawsuit is resolved.

Knoblach sued in late October, saying the inclusion of provisions for a new Senate office building in the tax bill violated the state constitution, which stipulates "no law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title."

The purpose of the stipulation is so citizens will know how lawmakers vote on separate items of public business, said Erick Kaardal, attorney for Knoblach. In this case, he said, it means new spending for a state building doesn't belong in a bill focused on taxation. He argues it was inserted there because legislative leaders didn't want to try to get the 60 percent supermajority required for capital bonding projects.

Kaardal called it a "prototypical case of legislative logrolling."

Knoblach is arguing that the project be stopped and that money be paid back. The office-building provision in the tax bill authorized a $3 million appropriation in fiscal year 2014 for design work.

But the legal test is that subjects in the same law have to be connected only by a "mere filament," said John Garry of the attorney general's office. The common thread here is that the tax bill and office project both involve raising revenue for government operations, Garry said. In the case of the office building, it's through lease revenue bonds.

"This is not a complicated issue at all," Garry said.

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Senate office building fit in Minnesota tax bill, state attorney argues

The developers of a northeast Wichita office park plan to begin construction on a third building March 1.

Gary Oborny and Chad Stafford of Occidental Management said the two-story, 46,000-square-foot building will be the largest of the three buildings at Offices at Cranbrook, a Class A office park at 10111 E. 21st St.

Oborny, Occidentals chairman and CEO, said occupancy at the parks two, 23,000-square-foot single story buildings is 71 percent. He said that occupancy level triggered the companys plans to start construction on the third building.

Were very happy with the response from the business community to the new park, he said.

As for tenants for the new building, were working on them right now, Oborny said.

The new building is the developments largest because it will be two stories. He said the company eventually plans to build a fourth building, but at 10,000 square feet it will be Cranbrooks smallest.

The third building will feature covered balconies on the second floor and covered patios for ground-level offices, both of which will look out on the developments nearly 2-acre lake.

Spaces in the third building can be configured for as little as 4,000 square feet up and as large as 23,000 square feet, Stafford said. There also will be a partial basement for tenant storage, they said.

Spangenberg Phillips Tice is the architect. Selection of a general contractor is pending.

Stephanie Wiens is Occidentals lead leasing agent on the building.

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Work on third Cranbrook building to start March 1

A Charlotte developer announced plans Tuesday for a new office building in the South End area.

The three-story building will be at 2418 Dunavant St., just northwest of where South Boulevard meets Remount Road. It will have 15,500 square feet of office space.

Officials with RBB Investments said they expect to start construction early this year, with occupancy in the fall.

We feel there is pent-up demand for new Class A office space in this area which is already bursting with energy and new residential and retail development, Margie Bruner, principal of RBB, said in a statement.

Bouyed by the proximity of the Lynx Blue Line, the South End has seen a surge of development in recent years, much of it coming in the form of new apartment complexes.

Office vacancy rates in the midtown submarket that includes the South End stood at 4.3percent in the third quarter of 2013, according to the latest figures available from Karnes Research. That ranked among the lowest rates in the city for ClassA office space the designation reserved for the most desirable office accommodations.

The architectural team of Overcash Demmitt designed the planned office building. Leasing will be handled by Anne Vulcano and Jessica Brown of CBRE, with rental rates expected to be $26 to $28 per square foot.

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Originally posted here:
New office building planned for South End

Published: Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014, 5:27p.m. Updated 11 hours ago

The Pittsburgh Planning Commission approved plans Tuesday for a new office building on the site of the former Reizenstein Middle School in Shadyside.

The six-story, 200,000-square-foot building would anchor the $100 million Bakery Square 2.0 development by Shadyside's Walnut Capital. It would connect to the original Bakery Square development across Penn Avenue via an enclosed pedestrian walkway four stories above the street.

Construction is expected to cost more than $40 million and start this spring. Walnut Capital has not identified any tenants.

The commission also was briefed on expansion plans at Whole Foods Market's East Liberty store. Plans include expanding the 32,000-square-foot store by about 14,000 square feet and adding a parking deck over its existing lot. The existing lot would likely close from June through August, officials said. The store is working to arrange parking alternatives.

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Planning Commission approves new office building at site of former Reizenstein Middle School

The Santa Maria City Council will consider measures on Tuesday to clear the path for a construction project that includes the establishment of the citys first Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.

The office would relocate the operations of the ICE location in Lompoc.

Theyre located in the Lompoc Federal Penitentiary, which makes it very difficult for them to conduct their operation out of there because of their restrictions as far as accessibility, because theyre housed in the penitentiary, said City Manager Rick Haydon.

The offices mission is to review records of inmates incarcerated throughout Santa Barbara County, find undocumented immigrants and process their deportation. Haydon

said the move wouldnt change that mission or have any effect on the citys police department.

The construction project also would establish two medical buildings. The project meets city goals of bringing in long-term employment opportunities, according to the staff report.

The council will consider other items ranging from a pay raise for firefighters to replacing a sidewalk on installing bike lanes on San Ysidro Street in its first meeting of 2014.

The wage hike comes as one of the larger annual updates to the citys memorandum of understanding with the Santa Maria Fire Fighters Union. It is the last of the MOUs with city labor organizations to reach the city council agenda and promises small cost-of-living adjustments on the same scale as the other groups received. They represent the first time any of those employees have received pay raises since 2009, Haydon said.

The San Ysidro sidewalk project will replace existing material warped because of tree growth between College Drive and Miller Street on the southern end of the city. The council will vote on whether to award a $166,577 bid to G. Sosa Construction for the project. According to supplementary agenda materials, the price is more than 30-percent lower than what the city expected to pay. The job also involves installing bike lanes, Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant wheelchair ramps and improved drainage. Workers will remove existing trees and replace them with less invasive types, the report said.

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City to consider steps toward building ICE office

A rendering of what the new bank and office building on North Road will look like. It is modeled after an 18th-century home in Cambridge.

CHELMSFORD -- A bank and office building is taking shape on North Road that will be closely modeled after an 18th-century home in Cambridge.

The 9,700 square-foot two-story building won approvals from town boards last year and survived a legal appeal from an abutter who challenged the Planning Board's backing of the project, saying the building didn't abide by a preservation restriction on the site.

The building, according to a stipulation signed by the Board of Selectmen in 2000, "shall be modeled" after an 18th-century Cambridge home of British army officer John Vassell. It was the property's former owner, Rodger Currie, a dentist who died in 2011, who wanted the building to have that certain look, said Robert McCrensky, who now owns and is developing the site.

"It's a very prominent family from the 1700s, and he loved the design," McCrensky said, adding later, "I think his dream will come true."

Cedar siding on the front wall and brick side walls, along with intricate architectural details, will make the building unique, he said.

"This may be one of the most historically accurate buildings built in this area in 20 or 30 years," McCrensky said.

Construction crews were pouring a concrete foundation for the building this week, with plans to have the building complete by around August.

The Planning Board granted special-permit approval last summer for a building with a bank and drive-through teller on the first floor and offices on the second floor.

But abutter William Harvey, who owns 23-24 North Road, appealed, saying the project did not comply with the preservation restriction. The only evidence that the proposed building would be modeled after the home of the British officer was a photo of what the front of the building would look like, Harvey said in a lawsuit.

Originally posted here:
New bank building will have old look

Phil Wood and Jon Gilfry began the year with a new look in office space.

Actually, they have a whole new building.

Construction on the Wealth Partners building started in May 2013 and the business moved into its new location just before Christmas. Dave Boltinghouse was contractor for the building at 1350 N. Bell St., in Fremont.

Wood and Gilfry are partners and wealth advisers for the firm.

Were a growing business. In addition to Fremont, which is our home office, we have offices in Omaha and Lincoln, but this is where the vast majority of our staff is, Wood said.

Including Wood and Gilfry, the group includes four advisers and eight support staff members.

The new building is 7,300 square feet. Wealth Partners is using 5,300 square feet of that space. A bay also is available for another business willing to locate there.

Were getting interest right now, Gilfry said. Hopefully, another local business will be a neighbor of ours here soon.

The building has seven private offices with four additional work spaces. The downstairs portion includes a large conference room with couches, tables and chairs which, along with woodwork, designed to provide a relaxed, homey look.

While presentations can be given in this room, it also will be a place for social functions for clients and is available for community events.

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Wealth Partners has new building on Bell Street