After months of speculation,Amazon announced last year that it had chosen Arlington, Virginia, as the site of its second U.S. headquarters.

For the current phase of the project, scheduled to be complete in 2023, the retail giant plans to build two 22-story office towers at the Metropolitan Park site in the Pentagon City neighborhood outside of Washington, D.C.The project team includes development partner JBG Smith, general contractor Clark Construction and ZGF Architects.

Clark began work on-site in mid-January with the demolition of existing warehouse structures.Here, Construction Dive talks with Clark Construction Senior Superintendent Monique Holley about working on such a high-profile project.

CONSTRUCTION DIVE: Please describe the work you are doing at the Amazon site.

Monique Holley: We are working on the successful delivery of two LEED-Platinumbuildings, 65,000 square feet of street-level retail and more than a half mile of protected bike lanes.Crews currently are working to remove and recycle construction materials an early first step in achieving the project team's goal of LEEDPlatinum certification. This spring, we will begin support of excavation, mass excavation and start work on the below-grade structure for the new office buildings.

Monique Holley

Permission granted by Clark Construction

In addition, Amazon is committed to ensuringthe community is engaged and informed throughout the construction effort and we share that commitment wholeheartedly. Our project team has already begun the process of getting better acquainted with area residents, businesses and civic associations. We are focused on being good stewards of the neighborhood, supporting local businesses and having a lasting positive impact on the surrounding community.

What is your role on the project?

HOLLEY: Specifically, my role is about motivating the people I work with to meet the tangible goals we create on-site each day. My responsibilities are tied to safety, quality control, planning and scheduling. While Im not sure Im supposed to have favorites, I really enjoy the safety and planning aspects of my work as theyre both integral to every facet of the job. Im passionate about safety and take my responsibility for maintaining a safe jobsite very personally.

Ultimately, I want everyone to go home as safe and healthy as they came to work that morning. Planning is intrinsically tied to that goal. I love to plan the work because it requires being innovative, thoroughly vetting ideas to identify new ways to make a process better and working collaboratively with people from all different disciplines to get the job done.

What are a few of the biggest challenges on this project?

HOLLEY:All construction projects have their challenges. Weve approached this job with the mindset that we need to be prepared for the challenges to come, but equally focused on capitalizing on the opportunities that lay ahead. Those opportunities come in many forms from integrating with the community around the jobsite to identifying new ways to innovate and build smarter to creating growth opportunities for small businesses or for individuals interested in building a career in our industry.

I continually challenge myself and my Clark team members, along with all of our trade partners, to present new ideas that will help us enhance the way we build, strengthen the community and ensure we deliver an experience and end product that exceeds our clients' expectations.

As a superintendent how do you motivate and inspire employees?

HOLLEY:As a leader, I greatly value communication, transparency, education and respect. I always try to be mindful of my actions and words, and work to eliminate roadblocks so that the people I work with can be successful. Ultimately, if the trades and my project team are successful, Im doing my job.

My own personal sense of pride and unwillingness to fail also remind me of how important it is to be a resource to all who need help. The best way to be that resource is to clearly communicate our work plan with all stakeholders, educate those who are managing or reviewing the quality control process, and continually look for better ways to plan the work and work the plan. I firmly believe if there is a foundation of respect in place on the jobsite, things like communication, transparency and education follow suit.

You were part of Clark's Field Development Group. How did it enhance your career?

HOLLEY:The Field Development Group (FDG) is Clark Constructions internal professional development program geared toward fine tuning the technical and leadership skills of the companys future superintendents. The program features a three-year curriculum that blends classroom learning, hands-on experience and mentoring.

I am a graduate of the FDG and currently lead our Mid-Atlantic division program, which has 55 participants spread across two classes. Being involved in the program is truly a passion of mine. The FDG gave me a better understanding of the technical skills needed to plan a job more efficiently, it helped me expand my Clark network and better leverage company resources, and ultimately helped me understand who I wanted to be as a field leader, which was an evolutionary process. I am so grateful for the experience.

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What's it like to kick off construction for Clark at Amazon's HQ2? - Construction Dive

The renovation and expansion of the Teller County Sheriffs Office has been a long time coming. In fact, the plans for remodeling and expansion of the former fire station have been in the works for more than 23 years.

Ground was broken in November 2019 and the first footings were poured Jan. 28 for the expanded 20,668-square-foot building, which is expected to open before years end.

It will encompass the existing 5,200-foot Harris Building at 11400 U.S. Highway 24 in Divide, adding to its footprint and expanding upward.

Its at the very grassroots level right now, said Bob Campbell, vice chairman of the Teller County Board of County Commissioners, of the buildings construction progress as of mid-February. Weve moved a lot of dirt and shoveled some piles around, but thats about it. Were in pre-mode.

Come spring itll start looking like a real building, a real development.

Teller County Public Works Director Fred Clifford agreed there wont be visible progress on building construction until late spring.

Were mainly doing demolition of the old building and some foundation work right now, he said in early February.

The building budget is just under $5.8 million, with the total project cost estimated at between $6.8 million and $7.2 million when all is said and done. Its too soon to determine the final figure, as unexpected building costs tend to come up in the construction phase, according to Campbell.

The atypical thing about these particular renovations is how theyre funded. The county has been saving since 2007 for this expense, Campbell said.

Also, El Paso-Teller County 911 has pledged half a million dollars toward the project.

Were not taking loans and borrowing money for this. Weve got a long-term capital plan, Campbell said. We didnt want to waste taxpayer money by taking loans.

He added, Were pretty proud of the fact that we already have a kitty going for the next project, whatever that may be.

Thats what happens when you get a bunch of non-government guys planning for the government, he said.

Its unusual to save for it and not go into debt. Business folks are community folks. We all came from private industry, Campbell said of the current three-man board of commissioners. Weve planned and engineers and talked this through. Plus, its not like the county is building new buildings every day. Look at the 115-year-old Teller County Courthouse.

Building history

The one-story building near the main crossroads in Divide was constructed by the Divide-Florissant Fire District in 1985 and named for fire chief Richard J. Harris.

In 1996, a second floor, sheriffs substation and holding cell were added while a new Divide fire department building was built on County Road 51, Clifford said.

The full building was dedicated to the Teller County Sheriffs Department, but it didnt take long for it to outgrow the space.

With the staffing levels at about 70-80, the building was just outdated, Clifford said.

Whats most exciting about the building expansion, according to Campbell, is the room.

Well actually have real space instead of being a converted fire department, where everything is jerry-rigged, Campbell said. Nobody had their own desk before.

In the new building there will be offices, control rooms, space for volunteers, a communications and dispatch center, training rooms, locker rooms, a conference room and an office for the coroner, who previously had none, he said.

None of that really existed before, Campbell noted. Itll have all the things youd typically see in a sheriffs office. And even a little bit of a lobby. Itll be a legitimate office building with a few modern tweaks and a real parking lot, paved.

The efficiency of the building, he said, is going to be amazing.

We built it for the future. There are a few spots that arent programmed into the plans so theres room for grow.

H.W. Houston Construction of Pueblo is the contractor for the building, which was designed by Keystone Associates Inc. architects of Colorado Springs.

In the fall of 2019, the administration of the sheriffs office moved into the adjacent Teller County Detentions Facility on Weaverville Road, so there would be public access not far from the original office. Other county facilities made room for other personnel, Clifford said.

The weathers been favorable to get some of the site work done, so were moving along nicely at this point, Clifford said in February. It is moving along. I think in the spring youll start seeing the steel and the structure come together.

A sign

While the building site was being prepped, the construction crew uncovered an old Gary Shoemaker sign buried in the dirt, Campbell said.

As harbingers go, this one was pretty cosmic.

Its this big old sign, maybe three-foot by four-foot, he said. Shoemaker was a former Teller County sheriff, who, coincidentally, the new building is being named after.

At a mid-December 2019 Teller County Board of County Commissioners meeting, Sheriff Jason Mikesell unveiled plans to name the renovated sheriffs office after Shoemaker, who served for two decades as county sheriff. He died at the age of 77 on Aug. 1, 2019.

His son, David Shoemaker, said in his fathers obituary, There is only one thing that can be said about my dad, Gary Shoemaker: He was tough on the outside, but had a soft spot in his heart for his family and friends, and the citizens of Teller County, and employees of the Teller County Sheriffs Department, (whom) he so faithfully served for his entire adult life and law enforcement career.

A formal building dedication is planned when construction is completed.

Excerpt from:
TELLER CO. GUIDE 2020 Teller County Sheriff's department looks ahead to a place of their own - Colorado Springs Gazette

Newly built 25 Kent Ave. has lots of eye-catching architectural details. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

Eye on Real Estate: Normal people go to Winter Smorgasburg and Brooklyn Flea to eat fab food, browse through boxes of five-dollar vinyl records and try on $60 vintage hats.

Real estate nerds go so they can see the building where these tandem weekend events are held.

Thats why I was in Williamsburg on Saturday, up on the eighth floor of 25 Kent Ave. Of course, I stood in line for pork buns from Maos Bao and bought an ice cream cone from Bona Bona, which was topped with Italian meringue the vendor toasted with a blow torch.

But the main reason I was there was to check out the vast, high-ceilinged top floor of the job-generating office and industrial building at 25 Kent Ave. I also wanted the opportunity to see the stunning views of the Manhattan skyline, the East River, neighboring Greenpoint and the streets of Williamsburg from its floor-to-ceiling windows.

One of Smorgasburg and Brooklyn Fleas past winter locations was the jaw-dropping banking hall at the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Clocktower in Fort Greene, which is arguably Brooklyns most famous building. It was quite an experience to see the banking hall, which is an interior landmarksomething thats rare in Brooklyn.

Brand new 25 Kent Ave., where Smorgasburg and Brooklyn Flea are now held, is also a wonderful building in completely different ways.

It belongs to Toby Moskovitss development firm Heritage Equity Partners and real estate investor Rubenstein Partners. It occupies the entire block bounded by Kent Avenue, North 12th Street, Wythe Avenue and North 13th Street.

If youre planning to attend Smorgasburg and Brooklyn Flea, which run through March 29, the building entrance youre looking for is on North 12th Street.

There are a number of noteworthy buildings on Wythe Avenue. Ill show you some of the others later. First I want to focus on whats important about 25 Kent Ave.:

On the glass walls by the entrance doors to 25 Kent Ave.s two lobbies, a painted message reminds everybody the property is legally obligated to have manufacturing tenants. This business is subject to Industrial Business Incentive Area regulations which require a minimum amount of space to be provided for specific industrial uses, the message says.

There are two lobbies because the Kent Avenue building is actually two separate brick and glass buildings with a glass-clad connector linking its upper floors. Beneath the connector, theres a breezeway, which is like a pedestrian-only street.

I should pause my narrative about 25 Kent Ave. for a moment to mention that if you dont live within walking distance of the property, you can get there by taking the G train to its Nassau Avenue stop, which is just a few blocks away.

I should also mention that if you want to get a good look at 25 Kent Ave.s exterior, you should go to Vale Park. This publicly accessible green space is located on the roof of a low-rise retail building thats part of The William Vale. Ill tell you more about this hotel a bit later.

I first heard Moskovits, who is Heritage Equity Partners CEO, speak about her development plans for the Kent Avenue site at a real estate roundtable at the Brooklyn Historical Society in November 2013.

At a press briefing in February 2016, she told reporters she wanted the building to provide much-needed growth space for entrepreneurs in Williamsburg, where her family had done business for three generations.

Her immigrant grandfather had owned a business in the neighborhood and her fathers factory had been located there, she said. And her real estate firms office was located in Williamsburg.

The 25 Kent Ave. property went through the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP, process to be rezoned for office and industrial uses.

In December, a clothing maker and retailer named Kith signed on as 25 Kent Ave.s anchor tenant. The company is leasing 57,679 square feet of manufacturing space, which is about two-thirds of the buildings total manufacturing space.

Creating a makerspace in Williamsburg embodies the ideals we hold as a brand that include creating inclusive and innovative experiences in new exciting surroundings, Kith Founder Ronnie Fieg said in a joint announcement about the lease with building co-owner Rubenstein Partners.

The amount of rent Kith is paying was not disclosed. The company is relocating from Soho.

Another interesting industrial tenant has also signed a lease. Randolph Beer rented more than 12,000 square feet, some of it manufacturing space, for a restaurant, bar and brewery,Eater reported in February. The brewer will put its beer in cans for the first time.

An art exhibition called A Romantic Comedyis on display on the ground floor of 25 Kent Ave. through March 31. It features more than 50 works by emerging artists, curated by Sophia Sobers and Steven Pestana.

The exhibits themes are courtship, domesticity and the workplace what society presents to the world versus what is hidden, an online posting about it says.

The exhibition is at 25 Kent Ave. thanks to a business called Wallplay, which is programming and operating vacant retail and office space at 25 Kent Ave. until long-term tenants move into it.

By the way, Gensler was 25 Kent Ave.s design development architect. The designer was Hollwich Kushner.

After your visit to 25 Kent Ave., youll want to see other properties on Wythe Avenue. A good place to start is the eye-catching hotel called The William Vale (yes, they capitalize the T), which is across the street from 25 Kent Ave.

Vale Park is part of the hotel complex.

Zelig Weisss Riverside Developers built The William Vale, whose address is 111 North 12th St. The architecture firm that designed it was Albo Liberis. The 21-story buildings lower floors look like theyre standing on stilts.

I took a hard-hat tour of the building in 2015 with my colleague Rob Abruzzese, who snapped wonderful photos. Mordy Steinfeld, Riversides director of operations and development, told us all 183 guest rooms would have balconies.

In the 19th century, a man named William Vale owned the land where the hotel now stands. A branding firm hired by Riverside saw Vales name on an old map. Thats how the hotel got its name.

The William Vale opened in September 2016. Its rooftop bar, which is called Westlight, has stellar views of the Manhattan skyline at sunset. I took pictures there in February 2017.

The William Vale is one of four glam hotels on a short span of Wythe Avenue. The second one Im going to tell you about is the Wythe Hotel.

This hotel, which is located at 80 Wythe Ave. on the corner of North 11th Street, was the first of the four to open back in 2012.

Two Trees Management, the Walentas familys company, created the Wythe Hotel by adding modern floors to the top of an eye-catching factory called the Weidmann Cooperage, which is more than a century old. Distinguished architect of yesteryear Theobald Engelhardt designed the industrial building.

The 70-room hotel was one of the winners of the 2013 Building Brooklyn Awards, which are given out annually by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.

The third luxe lodging property here is the Williamsburg Hotel, which is at 96 Wythe Ave. on the corner of North 10th Street. Heritage Equity Partners built it. Michaelis Boyd Studio designed it.

Shortly after the eight-story, 147-room hotel opened in 2017, I slipped in one afternoon and ordered high tea in the lobby. It was great fun.

A visit to the hotels rooftop bar is on my to-do list. Its called the Water Tower because its a giant replica of a cylindrical wooden water tank.

Rooftop water tanks are a beloved element of New York Citys built environment. Theyre used to boost buildings water pressure.

Rosenwach Tank Co., a water-tower maker founded in the 1860s, owned property on the opposite side of Wythe Avenue from the Williamsburg Hotel. From 1924 to 2012, Rosenwach operated a wood mill at 87 North 9th St.

The company sold the property for $10 million in 2012, city Finance Department records indicate.

The Rosenwach wood-mill site is relevant to this story because thats where the fourth Wythe Avenue hotel was built. This 175-room hotel is the Hoxton, whose address is 97 Wythe Ave. It opened in 2018.

The Hoxton is an upscale British hotel chain.

The buyer of Rosenwachs property sold it to London-based developer Ennismore, which built the hotel.

If you step into the Hoxtons lobby, where people are hanging out on cushiony couches and armchairs, you might end your Wythe Avenue walk and stay so long youll wind up ordering dinner.

Those of you who continue strolling will see old fashioned brick rowhouses and pass a shop called Heatonist at 121 Wythe Ave. that sells hot sauces made in small batches. The store has a tasting room and employs experts called hot sauce sommeliers, its website says.

Just off the corner of Wythe Avenue and North 7th Street, Shelter Pizza has an eye-catching corrugated metal facade with a gigantic American flag painted on it and windows that reflect neighboring buildings.

On the corner of Wythe Avenue and North 6th Street, a mammoth mural on the brick facade of National Sawdusts building will get your attention. This is a nonprofit music performance venue and recording studio thats devoted to building audiences for classical and new music. The century-old property at 80 North 6th St. was a sawdust factory, the venues Facebook page says.

At this point on my Wythe Avenue stroll, shadows were lengthening and it was getting hard to take photos.

I turned down North 5th Street and headed to the East River shoreline so I could walk around the publicly accessible piers and catch the NYC Ferry, whose North Williamsburg dock is located there.

One of the most photogenic things on the piers is a stainless steel pipe and mesh sculpture called Crescendo designed by artist Mark Gibian.

Later, on my ferry ride down to DUMBO, I got a good look at Two Trees Domino Sugar Refinery shoreline development.

The gantry cranes in Domino Park caught my eye.

The white, precast concrete facade of Dominos new combination office and residential property glowed in the late-afternoon sun. COOKFOX Architects designed One South First, as its called because its address is 1 South First St. (Readers with long memories will recall that when its construction first got underway, the building was referred to by an alternate address, 260 Kent Ave.)

The residential portion of One South First is 45 stories tall and has 332 rental apartments. Asking rents for currently available units range from $3,392 per month for a studio to $6,577 per month for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment, the propertys website says.

Follow reporter Lore Croghan on Twitter.

Eye on Real Estate is veteran reporter Lore Croghans weekly column on Brooklyns built environment. Whether its old as Abraham Lincoln or so new it hasnt topped out yet, if a building is eye-catching, Eye will show it to you. Click here to read about some of my favorites for instance, the individual landmarks that are scattered around Williamsburg.

March 4 |Editorial Staff

March 4 |Noah Singer

March 4 |Walter Mosley and Alex Fennell

March 3 |Mary Frost

Read the rest here:
Explore Williamsburg's new office and industrial building, home to Winter Smorgasburg - Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Women have been making inroads into larger roles on construction sites, both as tradespeople and site managers, positions that always seemed a natural fit to Keri Woodring, a project manager with McHugh Construction, who became fascinated with construction at an early age.

But she has met plenty of skepticism along the way, especially near the beginning of her 20-year career in construction.

When I met people and told them I was in construction, many were like, what, no, why would you do that? Thats changing.

Courtesy of McHugh Construction

Keri Woodring atop the Curio Hotel at Navy Pier.

I always enjoyed building things, and helping my dad with construction and home improvement projects, she said.

That eventually led Woodring,who was raisedin Fremont, Indiana, a small town in the far northeastern corner of the state,to Purdue University and an engineering degree. And throughout her 20-year career in Chicago, including 16 years with McHugh, she has always worked with women, even in the early days.

It was something women were breaking into, she said.

Resistance to women on the job site hasnt completely evaporated. Woodring said there frequently seems to be a phase where she has to prove herself to the still male-dominated construction sites.

Its a normal thing on every project, she said. I do feel like when youre a woman, many of the guys dont take you seriously, but after a while, you get into a rhythm, and since its all about getting the job accomplished, they find women are capable of doing what the guys do.

Woodring is on the verge of completing her biggest job, the construction of the seven-story, 222-room Curio Collection by Hilton hotel on Chicagos Navy Pier. Developed by Maverick Hotels & Restaurants, the $95M project will open later this year.

Asproject manager, Woodring is on-site eight to 12 hours a day, acting as a go-between with ownership, the architectural team and tradespeople, as well as troubleshooting problems and overseeing the proper installment of finishes, building infrastructure and hundreds of other details.

Every day is different, but my ultimate responsibility is to bring projects in on time and under budget, she said.

Woodring needed all those skills to help reconstruct Chicagos historic New York Life building, built in the 1890s and designed by skyscraper pioneer William Le Baron Jenney, into The Gray Hotel. One of the earliest examples of steel-frame construction, the 14-story tower at 39 South LaSalle St. once occupied a place on Preservation Chicagos most endangered list.

But instead of meeting a wrecking ball, a McHugh team, armed with architectural and design plans from Gensler, New York-based Parts and Labor Designand Los Angeles-based Beleco, gut-rehabbed the structure, and by 2016, it became one of many aging downtown office buildings to get a second life as a boutique hotel.

Architectural plans are only the first step in any renovation, and it is up to project managers like Woodring and construction tradespeople to turn those visions into reality, a difficult task with a building from the dawn of the skyscraper age.

Courtesy of McHugh Construction

The Gray Hotel, 39 South LaSalle St.

It seemed like every time we opened up a wall, wed find something unexpected, Woodring said. It might be a column we didnt know was there, or some asbestos that you would have to mitigate.

Construction teams restored its many historic features, including the gray marble lobby and terra cotta and granite facade, and cut a hole in the roof to add an overhead retracting skylight for a top-floor lounge.

Confronting the unexpected is normal for a project manager. A few years ago, when McHugh was running the $26.5M project that replaced the piers giant Ferris wheel with the 525-ton Centennial Wheel, twice the weight of the old wheel and 50 feet taller, the senior project manager left, and the company tapped Woodring to take over.

I got the luck of the draw, she said.

Although she had never built a Ferris wheel before, that job was mostly about logistics, both making sure construction teams could safely operate in the midst of crowds drawn by one of Chicagos top tourist attractions, and correctly maneuvering heavy equipment on a pier with a limited load capacity.

All the skills of a project manager are transferrable, and its a set of skills that a lot of women already have, because its all about looking at the details, reviewing the drawings and managing the people.

Women are still in the minority on job sites, both as project managers and tradespeople, but she expects their ranks to keep growing, especially if schools that specialize in STEM education, such as Purdue, continue doing outreach to women, who, like Woodring, got started young.

A lot of girls are already hanging out like I did with their dads and moms doing construction, she said. There is also less of a stigma about it for women.

Although Woodring is about to finish up the biggest project of her career, she said whatever comes next doesnt have to be on the same or larger scale.

My career as a project manager has never been about the size of the project, for me its about the challenge.

Read more here:
'Why Would You Do That?' McHugh's Keri Woodring On The Diminishing Stigma Of Women In Construction - Bisnow

The new facility will be much larger than the 7,000-square-foot building that the company currently is using in Fargo.

Most of our offices are doubled up right now, so were out of space from that perspective, Enclave Companies co-founder Austin Morris said in a phone interview on Feb. 7 with Prairie Business. So itll be nice to have some extra space.

Morris and business partner Ben Meland opened their company in 2011, but in the past eight years they have moved four different times due to company growth and the need for more space. Morris said besides providing more room, the building now under construction will accommodate the company well into the future.

Were trying to plan longer term so we wont have to move again, Morris said. It will certainly accommodate us for the next decade and allow us to have more flexibility.

One tenant has already rented 25,000 square feet of space in the three-story building, Meland said, and the company will lease the remaining space on the second floor.

Construction of the new facility, whichthe partners said will feature expansive floor-to-ceiling windows, underground parking, timeless design and a variety of amenities including electronic charging stations, is expected to be finished by January 2020 or before. It will house between 250 and 300 people.

The business partners of Enclave, a fully integrated company that specializes in multi-family, commercial and industrial spaces, wanted to make their own space inviting and spacious, knowing that employees work better when they have room to stretch with various amenities and natural lighting.

One particular inviting feature of the building will be the open rooftop, Meland said, where employees can take their lunch breaks on the outdoor patio and use the provided grilling stations or firepit.

The building will have a fantastic lobby, Morris said, that spills into the outdoor space. There's a shared conference room overhanging the lobby on the second floor that can be used by any of the tenants and hopefully add value to everyone working there.

The owners said the future of their company looks bright literally with the facilitys natural light amenities, but also figuratively with many projects underway and years yet to grow.

Some of the companys current projects being developed include downtown Fargos 300 Lime, Fargo Center for Dermatology, MedPark Medical Center and the recently completed lifestyle center, Uptown and Main on Veterans Boulevard.

The company also recently expanded into the Twin Cities market with mixed-use and multi-family buildings currently under construction in Maple Grove, Shakopee and Savage, Minn.

Prairie Business Editor Andrew Weeks may be reached ataweeks@prairiebusinessmagazine.comor701-780-1276 | @PB_AndrewWeeks

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Enclave Companies is building a new home office in West Farg... - Prairie Business

Video footage of construction site thefts. ( Dolcefino Consulting )

AUSTIN, Texas - Representatives from a construction company building in Austinare speaking out concerning a "crime wave" of thefts that have cost the company "hundreds of thousands of dollars."

According to the Motivado Group, there have been 36 separate incidents of construction materials being stolen since January of 2019. "We have been begging for help daily, but the Mayor and Police Chief are simply not taking this seriously, says Jon Standley of the Motivado Group. This is a crime wave and these thefts are adding to the cost of building critically needed housing and office space in Austin.

According to Motivado Group,on at least three different thefts,surveillance video has been shared with police that identify the truck accused of taking the materials.

Every time there is a major theft of construction materials in this city a different investigator is assigned. In 34 cases, 17 different investigators. Austin Police and the Travis County Sheriffs Office are clearly not communicating, says Wayne Dolcefino, the President of Houston-based investigative media consulting firm Dolcefino Consulting.

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In one of the videos, an empty truck is seen coming into a construction site. Multiple suspects then use a forklift on site to load the truck with various bundles of construction material before they drive off.

According to the Motivado Group, there have been 36 separate incidents of construction materials being stolen since January of 2019.

Even after the videoswere shared with authorities no arrests have been made, according to the Motivado Group. They also stated that they have learned that suspects have been in handcuffs at least twice in the last year but received no charges.

Motivado Group is holding a press conference on Thursdayin hopes of what they say will get the authorities' attention.It is time for the City of Austin to take this seriously, says Standley. If we do not get help soon, we will be forced to hire teams of armed guards with directions to protect life and property.

See the original post here:
Construction company accuse police of inaction on construction site thefts - FOX 7 Austin

Amazon has leased another major office space in downtown Vancouver, albeit this space is intended to be temporary.

A new report by Bloombergindicates the Seattle-based multinational tech giant will temporarily occupy the entirety of the Spaces co-working office location within the new Deloitte Summit office tower, which is currently under construction at 400 West Georgia Street.

Spaces will sublease its 120,000-sq-ft space at the tower to Amazon, until the companys new permanent offices within QuadReal Propertys Canada Post redevelopment across the street is complete. It has leased the entirety of The Posts1.13 million sq. ft. of office space.

Artistic rendering of The Post redevelopment in downtown Vancouver. (MCM Partnership Architects / QuadReal)

This arrangement will allow Amazon to grow its Vancouver workforce until The Post is ready for occupation, similar to the companys years-long temporary tenancy within WeWorks locations within the Bentall Centre office complex as a stopgap measure until Oxford Properties new 402 Dunsmuir Street tower with 150,000 sq. ft. of office space reaches completion later in 2020.

Altogether, Deloitte Summit contains 370,000 sq. ft. of total floor area,with Deloitte occupying 117,000 sq. ft., Apple taking 60,000 sq. ft., and Boston-based Northeastern University occupying an unspecified but significant amount of space.

Construction progress on 400 West Georgia Street in downtown Vancouver on January 8, 2020. (Kenneth Chan / Daily Hive)

Deloitte is currently temporarily located within the Spaces co-working office location at the former Tom Lee building at 939 Granville Street. Previously located at Bentall Centre, it will relocate to the new office space within the namesake office tower developed by Westbank.

Deloitte Summit is scheduled for completion in early 2021.

Additionally, Amazon has leased 100,000 sq. ft. of office space within the newly built The Exchange tower at 475 Howe Street, and it has another 91,000 sq. ft. of space within the TELUS Garden office tower. Amazons workforce in downtown Vancouver is expected to grow to at least 5,000 people just before the middle of the decade.

Artistic rendering of the office tower at 400 West Georgia in downtown Vancouver. (OSO / Merrick Architecture / Westbank)

More here:
Amazon to lease office space in new Deloitte Summit tower in downtown Vancouver | Venture - Daily Hive

Moving up, moving in, moving out and moving on characterized Northeast Ohio's lively 2019 real estate market.

The new era of large apartment building construction began to be felt downtown as The Beacon, a 28-story building that was the first highrise residential project constructed downtown in 40 years, opened and the rise of the 34-story Lumen at Playhouse Square also put its stamp on the skyline.

Meantime, K&D Group of Willoughby capped its long run of projects rehabilitating old downtown office buildings to mixed use with big doses of apartments in the city's most iconic building, Terminal Tower.

Downtown Cleveland Alliance, the downtown security and promotional nonprofit, estimated the residential population as 18,800 as of Sept. 30, 2019, and said it's certain to grow more next year, with more than 1,000 apartments in development.

While large warehouses serving online retailers took center stage as Amazon opened its new fulfillment center in Euclid, its third operation in Northeast Ohio, and launched construction of another in Akron, smaller manufacturers kept things busy on the other side of the staff count.

Ohio City alone lost Voss Industries to Berea and Conveyer & Caster to Westlake. Downtown lost Tap Packaging Solutions, better known as the former Chilcote Co., to Brooklyn and Cleveland Vibrator Co. stayed within the city limits but moved to the Jennings Freeway Industrial Park.

However, other groups already own the properties shed by Tap and Conveyer & Caster, respectively, setting the stage for potential new apartments downtown and expansion by the neighboring Kowalski Heat Treating Co. in Ohio City. As those deals show, many high-profile real estate sales in 2019 were for development or redevelopment purposes, a reflection of the continued low-interest-rate environment.

Perhaps the best example was the $5.6 million sale of the Market Square Shopping Center, 2011 W. 25th St., in Ohio City to an affiliate of Chicago-based real estate developer Harbor Bay Real Estate Advisors. The firm plans to build a $175 million project on the site of the small single-story plaza across the street from the West Side Market. Thirty years ago, the strip center was progress for ground that had served for decades as extra parking for patrons of the market. Putting in midrise apartment and office buildings is the largest-scale commercial project in the city neighborhood near downtown since the 1920s.

Also in Ohio City, the 11-story Church + State apartments began rising at 2815 W. 25th St., and more were launched in locations from Franklin Circle to Tremont and Little Italy.

While big things were happening in Greater Cleveland, some big real estate development projects downtown stayed stuck in park. Plans for the Centennial, an apartment-office redo of the massive office building at 925 Euclid Ave., and nuCLEus, a long-planned retail-office-residential project proposed for the parking lots between Prospect and Huron roads near Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, both got revised plans. But neither closed multimillion-dollar financial packages to begin the major rebuilding, and building, projects.

The biggest question-mark for downtown and the city's real estate market surfaced in September as The Sherwin-Williams Co. announced it was launching a search for a new headquarters and a research-and-development center to replace its longtime locations on Prospect Avenue and Canal Road.

John G. Morikis, Sherwin-Williams' chairman and CEO, said in October the company planned to provide guidance for shareholders, employees and the community by the end of 2019 or early 2020.

Uncertainty about whether the massive paint and coatings maker would move to a site near Public Square, expand near its current headquarters at 101 W. Prospect Ave. or go for some other option perhaps in another state hovered over the city and the region like a vast cloud as the last days of 2019 ticked away.

With the completion of the huge Van Aken District in Shaker Heights and Pinecrest in Orange Village, no other large multitenant mixed-use projects with significant retail components are underway in the region. For an area that has added almost a million square feet of retail space annually for several years, that's a dramatic change. However, as some retailers with multiple locations drop like flies, it also reflects the challenge faced by brick-and-mortar shopping in the face of online rivals.

Filling empty Sears or Kmart spaces and empty mall stores is a big pursuit for shopping center owners as they try to woo other users to fill empty gaps and attract people. Beachwood Place is in the midst of planning an open-air meeting space to complement the enclosed two-story mall in Beachwood. Meantime, a full-blown remake of outlying grounds of the Macy's and Sears properties at Richmond Town Square as apartments and even self-storage is in the planning stages in Richmond Heights.

Although multiple stores went dark, it's a contradictory picture. Menards, the Eau Clair, Wis., hardware chain, and Meijer, a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based grocer and softgoods retailer, both privately held purveyors, opened new large-format stores at multiple locations in the region.

On the existing-home sales front, it was the busiest year of the past two as low interest rates in the 3% range kept buyers searching for desirable homes and allowed some owners to move on to larger properties or downsize. Residential builders continued to be busy, but the overall market remained flat. U.S. Census Bureau statistics for the combined Akron and Cleveland Metropolitan Statistical Areas show the number of single-family permits fell 9%, to 2,644 units, through October of 2019, the latest period available, from 2,891 in 2018's like period.

Dean Tompkins, 2019 president of the Home Builders Association of Greater Cleveland trade group, said he was surprised production statistics dipped given how busy his colleagues appear to be. However, he can see why the numbers are coming up that way.

"Even if we pulled more permits, we might not be able to get the labor to build more homes," said Tompkins, vice president of Payne & Payne Renovations & Design in Chardon. "There is clearly pent-up demand. Financing is available but still hard to get and rising land development and construction costs are (limiting) factors for homebuilders. But there's also a tremendous amount of home remodeling going on out there."

For all the go-go aspects of the market, cracks have started to emerge as the economic expansion ages. Lenders filed foreclosure proceedings against two big downtown Cleveland properties in 2019, the IMG Center building at 1360 E. Ninth St. and the Doubletree Hotel at 1111 Lakeside Ave. Both serve as cautionary tales to developers and owners that the economic winds can shift and change the direction of the market, their holdings and the contents of their wallets.

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Ups beat downs in the realty market in 2019 - Crain's Cleveland Business

Thomas Gounley December 31, 2019 0

Tower cranes and sidewalk closures dont last forever.

With the new year just around the corner, heres a look at some of the major developments in Denver that are expected to be completed in 2020.

Given the plethora of apartment projects underway in the city, we opted to focus on office and mixed-use projects, as well as the one major condo project that is wrapping up.

A rendering of Market Station.

This project on the site of a former bus terminal takes up nearly an entire block along the 16th Street Mall. It wraps around the existing RTD office building at 1600 Blake St.

Market Station is expected to be completed in the second quarter, according to a representative for Denver-based Continuum Partners, which is developing the project with New York-based Clarion Partners.

Market Station will incorporate 82,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor of the entire project, including units facing the pedestrian-only paseo where an alley typically would run.

The project will have 95,000 square feet of office space along 16th Street, and 225 apartments on upper floors elsewhere.

Rev360 is a five-story office building being constructed in the 3600 block of Brighton Boulevard in RiNo. It will have retail space on the ground floor.

The core and shell of Rev360 are expected to be completed in June, according to a representative.

The building is being developed by Revolution 360 LLC, a joint venture comprised of General Partner Ed Haselden, Keystone Equities, Rob Cohen, Tributary Real Estate and Avenue Property Group. WeWork has signed on to take two of the projects four office floors.

A rendering of The Hub North. (Submitted)

The Hub North is the second phase of Beacon Capital Partners office complex near the 38th and Blake rail station in RiNo.

The eight-story project will have retail space on the ground floor, and is expected to be completed in May, according to a Beacon representative.

The Hub South, the complexs first phase, is already complete. It has landed WeWork and HomeAdvisor among its office tenants, and Chase, Slaters 50/50 and Whole Sol among its retail tenants.

The 30-story Block 162 building, which broke ground in summer 2018, will rise 30 stories at 675 15th St., between California and Welton streets.

The first tenant is expected to move in come December, according to Doug Wulf, the Cushman & Wakefield broker marketing the building.

Houston-based Patrinely Group and USAA Real Estate are the developers.

A rendering of the 15-story 6900 Layton office building. (Courtesy of Cushman & Wakefield)

The 15-story office building 6900 Layton is under construction within the Denver Tech Centers Belleview Station area.

A Prime West executive said the project is expected to be completed in mid-to-late summer.

Newmont Mining Corp. has leased four floors of the building for its headquarters, which are currently located a short distance away in Greenwood Village.

Lakehouse is a 196-unit condo project being developed by Denver-based Nava Development across the street from Sloans Lake Park. It also will feature retail space.

Lakehouse will welcome its first residents in early 2020, according to Nava.

Whats not on here?

Expecting to see something else here? A few updates:

+ Denver-based developer Revesco Properties has completed Meow Wolfs future home. But the art collective, which once floated a 2020 opening, said it now plans to open in 2021.

+ Stonebridge Cos.s conversion of the former Emily Griffith Opportunity School in the 1200 block of Welton Street into a hotel is now expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2021, according to the company.

+ McGregor Square, the mixed-use project the Colorado Rockies are developing next to Coors Field, is eyeing an early 2021 opening.

+ The Thompson Hotel being developed at 16th and Market downtown is expected to open in 2021.

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6 major Denver developments slated to be completed in 2020 - BusinessDen

ATLANTA It's a building with ties to Atlanta's pop and music cultures going back decades. But a recent construction accident just brought part of the old Masquerade music venue tumbling down.

In its long and storied life, the Old Excelsior Mill has gone from a workplace to a venue for some of the biggest names in American music. Apparently, though, a construction accident aiming to convert the old mill back into something more work-friendly ended up causing serious damage instead.

"I kind of wanted to see it for myself," Shannon Byrne of Pine Lake said.

RELATED: Former Masquerade venue to become office space

The amateur historian couldn't believe what she saw - and she's been documenting buildings like this in metro Atlanta for years.

"I've been fascinated by the rock, the stone that runs through our city," she said.

The granite she said, was quarried from Stone Mountain in the late 1800s. But, on Friday, the east wall of the old mill collapsed during construction. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

Plans are in the works by two developers to transform the old venue into a mixed-use office space.

"I am still picking my jaw up off the ground," Byrne said. "I'm shocked. I'm kind of surprised."

For Scott Banks, who said he partied at the mill when it was Masquerade decades ago, it's not as big of a shock.

"Twenty years ago," he said. "I was surprised it was standing up then."

The developers released a joint statement saying in part, they are "in the process of discovering exactly what happened, but preliminary information leads us to believe it was related to the excavation work."

Coro Realty and Southeastern Capital said the work was done according to an engineer's specifications.

"You trust construction companies to take great care of construction buildings," Byrne said. "What are they going to do with the stone? Will they incorporate it back in the rebuild? Will they incorporate it in other aspects of the city or the Beltline?"

The answer to those questions remains to be seen as they don't have a cause yet on what exactly made the collapse happen in the first place.

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Old Masquerade mill building damaged in construction mishap - 11Alive.com WXIA