Under the plan to remake Tysons, the tallest buildingsup to 400 feetshould be located closest to the Silver Line stations.

Last week, theBoard of Supervisors approved changes to a future office building next to the Greensboro Metro station to raise its stature by 65 feet or up to 27 stories.

Located at the highest natural elevation in the county, this building will help to shape the look of the future skyline for Tysons.

The 400,000 square foot office is one of the six buildings that make up the Tysons Central development. Originally approved in 2013, the overall project will bring up to two million square feet of office, residential, retail hotel space next to the Greensboro station.

The boards action also allowed for other minor changes to the office, known as building A. It decreases the total amount of retail space previously approved by 35,000 square, converting this to office space instead.

The future building will be located on a 1.1-acre site north of Leesburg Pike, just steps away from the Greensboro stations escalators. Today, two retail buildings occupy the site, including a Mens Warehouse and Big Screen Store.

The building also includes construction of three of the six public parks planned for Tysons Central. The three parks includes a half-acre plaza that connects to the escalators for the Greensboro station, and more than quarter acre sky park.

The plaza will include seating, landscaping, bike racks, and public art. The elevated sky park, which will be located on the roof of the ground-floor retail, will connect to the plaza via a grand staircase. This staircase will be built so that it provides amphitheater style seating for performances or events on the plaza.

Developer Folger Pratt say they anticipate starting construction on the office building in 2018. It will join the Lumen, a 32-story, 398-unit apartment building, that broke ground last November on site next to the future office.

Rendering of the Lumen building in Tysons.

View original post here:
First Office Building for Tysons Central Grows in Height - Fairfax County Government NewsCenter

For a 17-story, Class-A office building currently underway in Bostons Seaport District, builder-developer Skanska USA, along with Boston-based design firm CBTand a host of engineers, had to think outside of the box.

So, they looked to the ellipse.

The 400,000-square-foot building, which topped out in March, is shaped by an elliptical steel frame that bows out as it ascends, reducing lateral loads and allowing the interior to be relatively light on columns.

The project, 121 Seaport, is just one of several buildings to break ground in Bostons burgeoning Seaport District in the last few years. The development run was sent into overdrive by the 2004 addition of new convention center in the neighborhood, with more than 7.6 million square feet of residential and commercial space built or on the way. And thats just whats being developed as part of developer WSs Seaport Square master plan for the districts core.

That massive undertaking has spurred other development in the area, including GEs new $200 million headquarters, which broke ground there this week on the site of a former candy-making facility.

At 121 Seaport, the decision to use an elliptical frame came from two parallel charges. The first, according to Henry Celli, senior project architect at CBT, was Skanskas goal to build the most energy-efficient structure the team could manage (the project is vying for LEED Platinum certification). The second was less quantifiable and came from the architects, who wanted to break from the typical steel-and-glass rectangular buildings cropping up nearby.

"As we were analyzing the Seaport District it was our second project in the Seaport we were noticing how the existing zoning was forcing a lot of projects into a regularized form, and we wanted to distinguish ourselves from that form in some other way,"Celli said.

The view from 121 Seaport into downtown Boston

Hallie Busta

Zoning in the area encourages square or blocky construction that uses up most the site, Celli said, with a relatively low cap on project height due to the nearby Boston Logan International Airport. An added challenge was the MBTA Silver Line train that ran beneath one end of the site, making digging too close challenging and costly.

The design solution was two-fold. The heft of the building was angled on the site as much to mind the placement of the foundation relative to the subway tunnel as to offer a "strong gesture,"Celli said, toward the adjacent Seaport Square Green park, both part of the Seaport Square master plan.

The project team derived the elliptical shape from building models generated to determine what form factors would allow them to reduce the risk associated with building near a subway line, limit solar heat gain on the faade, reduce the wind loads and, more generally, deliver a fresh, yet modest, take on office building design in a neighborhood filled with boxes.

The elliptical shell offers expansive views of the Boston Harbor and Financial District from the interior which this reporter witnessed when visiting the site last week. Even with the interiors complete, 10-foot ceilings throughout the space and high-performance vision glass which accounts for 80% of the faade will largely maintain the sights.

Those high ceilings are possible in part because the project uses a chilled-beam mechanical system instead of typical HVAC, which Skanska first implemented at 101 Seaport a similarly sized office project next door and will use in 121, too. The system circulates water, instead of air, reducing energy consumption and lowering related costs. The project will also use a 40,000-gallon-tank rainwater reclamation and reuse system, which will cut water consumption throughout the project by 30%, Russ DeMartino, vice president of development for Skanska USA Commercial Development, told Construction Dive in an email.

"We used a lot of data to back up the design moves we were making,"Celli told journalists during a presentation at Skanskas Boston office last week. For example, for a 25,000-square-foot floor plate, CBTs design requires 10% less cladding when the ellipse form factor is used compared to the rectangular one. The design choice also cuts energy usage by 14% thanks to a lower solar-heat gain coefficient, and the lighter load requires 15% less rebar in the buildings core.

CBT

An "aggressive"construction timeline, according to DeMartino, required the team to consider alternative construction methods to speed up the build. The team settled on the still-uncommon "up/down"construction process to erect the structure. The approach, through which the substructure and the first part of the superstructure are built roughly in tandem, is particularly useful for large projects in urban areas where conventional foundation work can be challenging.

"If we designed each tower column foundation to support the entire 17 stories of building, each of them would have been 25 feet deeper and it would have increased the cost of the project by $6 million,"DeMartino said, noting that using the method shaved six months off the job as compared to a typical bottom-up build.

Heres how it worked: The project team designed a temporary foundation under each column that could support the dead load of the subterranean parking and the first six floors of the tower. A 7-foot-thick concrete slab was then constructed at the lowest level of excavation (three floors down) to connect with the building columns and spread the load of all 17 stories across the slab. From there, floors seven through 17 were constructed.

"Accordingly, the excavation crews were 'in a race'to install the bottom garage slab before the steel crews erected more than six floors of the tower,"DeMartino said. Having Skanska as developer and builder helped manage that process, he added.

A rendering of the completed project

Skanska

Even though the bulk of the building was angled to avoid it, the subway tunnel under part of the site presented a challenge to construction. Excavation walls can move between inches and a foot which normally isnt a problem, DeMartino said except when building near an underground structure as massive and complex as a subway.

The project team used Autodesks BIM 360 project collaboration software to manage workflow and a combined Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3D and Revit model to develop a plan for the site that used the permanent parking floors underground to brace the perimeter walls, nearly eliminating lateral movement of 121 Seaports permanent slurry wall.

"Ironically, this method is also much faster than a conventional building construction method, saving many months of schedule,"DeMartino said.

BIM wasnt only used to facilitate design. It also helped keep the project on track. Paul Pedini, vice president of operations for Skanska USA Civil,told journalists during the presentation that the model was also used to manage the schedule and even to see if equipment necessary for construction would fit where it needed to on-site. "[There are] so many uses for the model once you get it,"he said.

In addition to the buildings atypical orientation and flared shell, the ground plan was also a critical environmental design factor, in this case by making the area more accessible to pedestrians. The projects three-story podium is separated from the tower and largely fills the site. Its rounded edges match the form of the rising, rounded corona, while the buildings entry is pulled back from the street corner. A 70-foot-wide outdoor pedestrian promenade on the third level of the podium provides space for retail and greenery and visually separates the base from the tower.

A rendering of 121 Seaport shows the receded entrance

Skanska

For a part of the city that was once a place for visitors to drop their cars on the way into downtown, supporting the uptick in commercial and residential development with greenery and public space is important. "Ten or 20 years ago, [the area] was mostly parking lots,"Celli said. "Essentially, where our building is it was a sea of parking lots. Most people would drive in, park in that area, then walk into downtown."

A view across the 17th floor

Hallie Busta

Looking out from the top of 121 on our tour, it was hard to imagine the sea of parking lots Celli mentions. Next door is 101 Seaport, also by Skanska and home to its Boston offices, and its other completed nearby project, Watermark Seaport Apartments, is also visible. For now, the view from the top of 121 is uninhibited, with wind whipping through the wall-less shell and the curve of the floor plate more apparent from the incomplete interior then it is likely to be for its eventual tenants. During our visit, crews were already working their way up to install the glass curtainwall, apply fire-proofing and begin to prepare the building for tenants.

Working on 121 Seaport with Skanska and CBT was McNamara Salvia as the structure engineers; Haley and Aldrich as the geotechnical engineers; Bala | TMP as the MEP engineers; Nitsch Engineering for the civil work; and Vidaris as faade consultant.

See the original post:
At Boston's 121 Seaport, Skanska plays with process, form for office construction - Construction Dive

GREENCASTLE, Pa. Summit Health is planning to build a medical office building in the Greencastle-Antrim community.

Construction could begin as soon as this summer in Antrim Township, Pa.

John Massimilla, chief operating officer of Chambersburg (Pa.) Hospital, confirmed this week that plans for the Summit-owned site at Exit 3 of Interstate 81 have changed since the project was proposed in spring 2015.

Originally, we planned to place an urgent care at the location, he said. We decided we wanted to plan a facility similar to the Waynesboro (Pa.) Medical Office Building in Greencastle because it is important to us that we provide convenient, accessible health care options to residents of Greencastle and northern Washington County.

The Waynesboro Medical Office Building opened in April 2015 adjacent to Waynesboro Hospital on East Main Street. The $15 million, three-story facility took about a year to construct.

The building houses Summit Health services for breast care, cancer and hematology, cardiology, endocrinology, ENT and hearing, orthopedic, podiatry, urology, women's health, surgical, primary care and walk-in.

It is planned that the (Greencastle) building will be about the same size as the Waynesboro Medical Office Building, Massimilla said.

He said Summit Health has not decided what services will be offered at the Greencastle location.

Summit Health houses a number of services at the John L. Grove Medical Center on the east side of Greencastle. Those services include primary care, walk-in, imaging, lab and women's health.

Plans for specific services located at the new facility have not been decided, Massimilla said when asked if any of those services would be moved to the new facility.

The Antrim Township Board of Supervisors gave approval Tuesday for Summit Health to begin moving dirt at the site while the plan is going through the review process.

The area of the new medical office building, known as the Antrim Commons Business Park, is a busy one.

In addition to several warehouses being built, the new location for Blaise Alexander Chevrolet Volvo is under construction, and El Dorado Stone is building a new production facility.

Summit Health hopes to begin construction by late summer or fall, Massimilla said.

Read more here:
Summit Health to build new medical building in Greencastle - Herald-Mail Media

The largest office building in downtown Westbrook is for sale.

One Riverfront Plaza has been vacant for more than a year. Disability RMS, a disability insurance provider and one of Westbrooks largest employers, left for South Portland in January 2016.

Marketing materials for the former Disability RMS Building tout the six-story buildings excellent highway access, newer construction and absence of large block competition.

The property owner was already struggling to keep up with the $20 million mortgage, and the loss of its core tenant was a death blow. Court documents show the U.S. National Bank Association filed a lawsuit against the property owner and eventually bought the building back at a foreclosure auction in February.

Now the bank is advertising the building to prospective buyers and tenants. Located on the bank of the Presumpscot River, One Riverfront Plaza has 134,000 square feet of high-end office space. A newly opened pedestrian bridge connects the office directly with restaurants and shops on Main Street.

City Administrator Jerre Bryant said a continued vacancy could hurt Westbrooks downtown.

If you bring in between 300 and 500 employees to the downtown on a daily basis, youre going to bring business to the downtown, Bryant said. When its vacant, thats not happening.

One Riverfront Plaza is listed for sale through NAI The Dunham Group in Portland, and offers were due April 28. The listing does not include an asking price. The advertising materials tout the six-story buildings excellent highway access, newer construction and absence of large block competition. A request for comment from the real estate firm Friday afternoon was not returned.

Portland-based Boulos Property Management is also listing the building for lease at $16.50 per square foot per year.

We have had some interest from prospective office users, Drew Sigfridson, managing director and partner at Boulos Property Management, wrote in an email. Most have had an interest in a portion of the building, not the entire building. We do not have any new signed leases for space at this point. It is a very attractive Class A office building and a great option for large office users in the marketplace.

Sigfridson did not respond to a request for further comment.

When One Riverfront Plaza was built in 2004, the going lease rate was $19 per square foot per year. Starting in 2006, Disability RMS occupied most of the building. In 2014, the company announced its plans to move its 350 employees to South Portland when its lease in Westbrook expired in 2016. City officials told the Portland Press Herald they had done everything possible to prevent the move.

The buildings owner, a New Jersey investment firm called Pendleton Westbrook SPE LLC, was in financial trouble even before Disability RMS left at the end of January 2016. At the time, a report from a New York-based commercial real estate analysis firm showed that Pendleton had failed to make a balloon mortgage payment two months earlier and was asking for an extension. By August 2016, U.S. Bank filed a lawsuit against Pendleton over nonpayment of the $20 million mortgage. The banking group asked the court to approve a foreclosure sale and appoint Boulos Property Management to take over management of the empty building.

That sale took place Feb. 17. The price was $9.2 million, less than half of the buildings assessed value.

Bryant couldnt say who has expressed interest in buying or leasing the property. He hoped for a locally based company to take over the entire building.

Theyve received proposals, he said. Ive heard nothing back from the bank or anybody else about what they received.

When developer Tim Flannery built One Riverfront Plaza in 2004, the city constructed an adjacent parking garage with 540 spaces. Bryant said he expects the buildings next owner to take over that lease and cover the revenue lost when Pendleton stopped paying. The lease costs $13,770 a month, or $165,240 per year.

It would be nice to get a real strong number of people coming into the downtown, Bryant said.

Megan Doyle can be contacted at 791-6327 or at:

[emailprotected]

Twitter: megan_e_doyle

Excerpt from:
Westbrook's largest downtown office building for sale - Press Herald

Crain's Detroit Business

Large downtown Royal Oak office building set to begin construction Crain's Detroit Business Photo by Faudie Architecture Three prominent tenants have been lined up for the new office building planned for 150 W. Second St. in downtown Royal Oak, making its 74,000 square feet about 85 percent pre-leased. Construction is expected to finish in ...

Originally posted here:
Large downtown Royal Oak office building set to begin construction - Crain's Detroit Business

RichmondBizSense

Developer plants own office at under-construction apartment complex RichmondBizSense Main Street Realty, the real estate management arm of developers Louis Salomonsky and David White's Historic Housing, is setting up an office in the ground-floor, glass-paneled storefront at 1817 E. Main St. a two-story mixed-use building being ...

Read more from the original source:
Developer plants own office at under-construction apartment complex - RichmondBizSense

Cool Offices: Stahl Construction blends historic brick and mortar with modern steel and glass Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal When Stahl Construction caught wind that Ackerberg was renovating the historic Miller Textile Building, it eagerly snapped up 15,000 square feet for a new headquarters. The building renovation involved installing new windows, plumbing and electrical ...

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Cool Offices: Stahl Construction blends historic brick and mortar with modern steel and glass - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal

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Read the original post:
Whats On Report - Commercial and residential construction ...

GRAND RAPIDS Kent County received three wide-ranging bids earlier this week for its 104,000-square-foot downtown office building at 82 Ionia Ave. NW.

Jenison-based nonprofit affordable housing developer West Michigan Housing Alliance came in as the high bidder at $10 million, while Grand Rapids-based Rockford Construction Company Inc. offered a little over $7 million. Naperville, Ill.- and Grand Rapids-based Franklin Partners LLC offered $3.4 million.

Only one of the development groups opted to share specific details of their plans for the building.

Jeffrey Dombrowski, principal with West Michigan Housing Alliance, said his group would redevelop the building into around 110 workforce housing units, targeting residents earning between 60 percent and 80 percent of the area median income (AMI). The plans also include ground-floor commercial space.

We love the building and the site, Dombrowski said. The county has done a wonderful job maintaining the structure.

Dombrowski added that converting the building from an aging municipal office facility into housing would require a significant investment, but is very doable.

The other development groups were more hesitant to share details regarding potential uses of the building.

Rockford Construction executives say theyre still evaluating several potential options for the building. A Franklin Partners executive declined to comment forthis report.

Kent County officials say theyll assess the bids based on multiple factors including, but not limited to financial considerations, terms and conditions, and timing issues, according to Communications Director Lisa LaPlante. The county wants to ensure a smooth transition for its staff currently working in the building and for the buyer, she said.

Some of the bidders mentioned being open to possible sale leaseback deals involving the county.

The county has no specific timeline for announcing the successful bidder, LaPlante added.

Kent County began seeking proposals nearly two years ago after a study conducted by architecture firm Progressive AE found the local government was under-using the building and that the four departments housed at 82 Ionia could easily be absorbed in other county-owned facilities.

Last July, Kendall College of Art and Design backed out of a $10 million bid to acquire the building, stating that the facility would not allow for the kinds of renovations needed to make it feasible for student housing, as MiBiz reported at the time.

Franklin Partners and Airmont, N.Y.-based The Embassy Group Acquisitions LLC bid on the building at that time as well, offering $6.8 million and $6.5 million, respectively.

Regardless of which bidder is ultimately successful, a redevelopment of the 82 Ionia building would add to the rush of activity in the area and for all of the bidding parties.

A subsidiary of the West Michigan Housing Alliance currently has the nearby Keeler Building at 56 North Division Ave. under option with plans of developing affordable housing and ground-floor retail on the site. Franklin Partners previously had the building under option but decided against moving forward with a project, as MiBiz previously reported.

Dombrowski from West Michigan Housing Alliance told MiBiz on Friday afternoon that having the two buildings in such close proximity would allow for significant efficiencies in terms of property management and other services.

For its part, Franklin Partners is currently in talks to build an office tower on a surface parking lot south of Van Andel Arena as part of a mixed-use entertainment district.

Meanwhile, Rockford Construction redeveloped the Morton House building across the street from 82 Ionia. The Morton is now market-rate apartments with retail and office space. The construction and development firm recently began demolition of several buildings along Bridge Street west of downtown Grand Rapids as part of a large-scale mixed-use development set to bring apartments, office and retail to the area.

Rockford Construction was also one of five development groups to respond to a request for qualifications from the city of Grand Rapids as part of a process to redevelop a publicly-owned 15-acre site along the Grand River on the south end of downtown.

Link:
3 developers bid on Kent County-owned downtown Grand Rapids office building - MiBiz

A new medical facility is under construction on Billings western edge on land long held by St. Vincent Healthcare.

The owners of Summit Oral Surgery are building a 6,800-square-foot facility on one acre at the northwest corner of Shiloh Road and King Avenue West, the first building in the proposed medical complex, said Brian Ludwig of Billings, Summits co-owner.

Ludwig and his partner, Rod Griffith, currently operate the practice in Lamplighter Square, which is now owned by Billings Clinic. They hope to relocate by the end of the year.

The $2 million project has been in the works for a few years, Ludwig said. It broke ground Thursday.

Were just growing out of the space, he said.

St. Vincent has held on to a 113-acre site at the corner for years. The hospital has already developed water, sewer and other services in the area. St. Vincent plans to develop additional medical offices and facilities there.

Summit Oral will add a third surgeon, Jesse Gray, and additional employees at the new location, Ludwig said. The new address will be 625 Henry Chapple Dr.

See original here:
First medical office under construction at St. Vincent land on Billings West End - Billings Gazette