A rendering of the Tilt49 office project and the adjoining AMLI Arc apartment tower. (ZGF Architects Rendering) The Tilt49 project under construction in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)

Amazon has inked a lease for another new office building in Seattle, the latestsign that the online retail giant hasno intention of slowing its growth despite building out a huge new campus north of downtown.

This time around, Amazon has taken Tilt49, a 306,000-square-foot office building under construction at 1812 Boren Ave. in the Denny Triangle neighborhood, just a few blocks from the new campus. The site is also only a block from another recently-leased Amazon building, Midtown 21.

An Amazon spokesman confirmed the lease for the entire office building and said employees will move in early 2018.The $85 million office building is being developed by Touchstone, which has worked with Amazon before on the Troy Blocks project, designed by ZGF Architects and built by Mortenson.

An adjoining 390-unit apartment project, that was originally part of the Touchstone project and later sold off, is set to open this year, giving employees working out of the new building a close option for housing.

Amazons rapid expansion in its hometown comes amid unprecedented of growth for the company worldwide. Amazonlast month reported that it has surpassed 341,000 employees globally, an increase of 110,000 in just the past year, not including temporary or seasonal staff. Amazon employs 40,000 people in Washington state, including about 25,000 people at its Seattle headquarters.

Amazon is filling out a puzzle of Seattlereal estate with its latest moves. Amazon played a key role in the development of the South Lake Union neighborhood, and now it is doing the same for the Denny Triangle, a neighborhood in between South Lake Union and downtown, and one of the last places in town with an ample supply of land for developing high rises.

Just last month, Amazon filed for permits to build a 17-story office building at 2205 7thAve., the site of a former Days Inn hotel. The project would represent Amazons fifth block of space in the neighborhood. In 2015 it completed itsfirst building in the neighborhood, the 36-story Doppler Tower.

That was followed by therecently opened Day One tower, and another building across the street that is under construction now. On anotherfull-blocksite, formerly home to the Hurricane Cafe, Amazon plans to build a 23-story building and an 8-story building in the future.

By 2022, Amazon has saiditcould occupy 12 million square feet across 40 buildings in Seattle, up from 8.5 million square feet as of the middle of last year.According to a new report from the Downtown Seattle Association, Amazon is well on its way to that 12 million square feet number.

DSA reports that Amazon in 2016 added 1.7 million square feet in downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. With another 3 million square feet under construction, Amazon will have a footprint of 10 million square feet in and around downtown by 2019, according to the report. That figure leaves outthe big new Bellevue officeAmazon is setting up.

Amazon and its fellow tech giants are juicing Seattles construction industry, according to the DSA report. In downtown, nearly 12 million square feet of office space is expected to be built between now and the end of 2019. That number is equivalent to theamount of office space built in and around downtown over the last 12 years combined.

All these office workers need somewhere to live as well. More than 14,000 units have been built in downtown and surrounding neighborhoods since 2010, increasing the housing stock by about 32 percent. Another 18,000 units are expected to be completed between now and the end of 2019, according to the report.

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Amazon scoops up yet another Seattle office building as it continues ... - GeekWire

This is the fourth article in a Handy Reference Guide series that has previously highlighted ConstructConnects construction starts statistics for roads, hospitals and educational projects.

This time it is office building work that is under the microscope with the accompanying table setting out results for all states in the U.S. and almost all the provinces of Canada. The findings for the four jurisdictions on Canadas East Coast Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are combined in the Atlantic Region.

The left-hand side of the dividing line in the table sets out annual average volume levels for the six years from 2010 to 2015, as well as average annual percentage changes. The right-hand side shows results for the most recent year, 2016, both with respect to dollar volume levels and year-over-prior-year improvements (or deteriorations).

The volumes in the table are the summations of private offices and government offices. The former usually accounts for a larger percentage of the whole in the U.S., ranging from a low of just over 50% to a high of about 70% over the past seven years.

In Canada from 2010 to 2015, the private component of total offices recorded greater variability, swinging from 40% to 80%. Within the context of a poor economic climate north of the border in 2016, due largely to weak commodity prices, especially for oil the private-to-public split last year was an abnormal 33% to 67%.

The problem can be easily perceived when one considers the following circumstance. According to several major commercial real estate research firms, the office vacancy rate in Calgary home to the second highest (i.e., behind only Toronto) concentration of head offices in Canada has presently skyrocketed to 25.0%.

A figure of 10% is usually taken to be a good benchmark for when office supply and demand are in reasonable balance, although the yardstick for suburban space is almost always looser (i.e., plus 300-to-500 basis points, where 100 basis points = 1.00%) than for downtown cores.

Returning to the results in the table, total U.S. office building construction starts grew at an average annual rate of +5.9% during the six years from 2010 to 2015. In 2016, they more than doubled that pace, increasing to +14.3% year over year.

What about the geographical distribution of starts? On average from 2010 to 2015, the largest dollar volume of office building construction starts occurred in the South Region ($8.4 billion USD), although both the Northeast ($6.9 billion) and the West ($6.7 billion) stayed in the hunt for top spot. The Midwest ($3.6 billion) was a laggard relative to the frontrunners.

With respect to annual average percentage changes, the Northeast did best from 2010 to 2015, at +22.3%, with the West in second place, +11.0%. The Midwest (+4.2%) made minor headway, but the South (+0.3%) was caught in a standstill.

The South made amends in 2016. Its office building starts last year compared with 2015 were a marvelous +65.1%. Its dollar volume of office starts in 2016 ($13.7 billion) was almost double what was rung up by the region that was next best, the West ($7.0 billion).

The Midwest also had an outsized percentage gain in year-over-year office starts in 2016, +35.1%. The West, at -0.1%, stayed flat and the Northeast slipped by an amount approaching one-third, -29.9%. After a prolonged period of major project initiations in the City of New York (+88% per year on average, 2010 to 2015), office groundbreakings in the Big Apple took a big pause to regroup in 2016 (-60.5%).

Canadas total office building starts soared by +16.9% per annum, on average, from 2010 to 2015. But in 2016, they fell into retreat nation-wide, -41.6%. The rout last year was most severe in Alberta, -80.6%, although British Columbia which had managed to achieve a +42.1% performance on average from 2010 to 2015 also stumbled badly, -73.4%.

Two provinces achieved upticks in 2016 relative to 2015: Manitoba (+196.9% or a tripling of its office starts volume) and Ontario (+33.9%). The large percentage gain in Manitoba was mainly a mathematical anomaly. 2015s base level (i.e., as the standard for comparison) was so low as to be almost insignificant.

According to CBRE Research, Toronto currently has the tightest office vacancy rate in its core district, 4.4%. Vancouver and Winnipeg also have limited empty cubicle space, at 7.7% and 8.9% respectively.

Again as reported by CBRE, Oakland (4.1%), parts of Manhattan (6.3% to 9.3%), Austin (6.7%), San Francisco (6.9%), Boston (7.2%), Charlotte (8.2%), Seattle (8.4%) and Portland (also 8.4%) are the urban centers in the U.S. with the least room to wander around their downtown water coolers.

Table 1: ConstructConnect's Office (Private + Government) Construction Starts United States ($ volumes are in billions USD)

Canada ($ volumes are in billions CAD)

Data source: ConstructConnect Insight. Table: ConstructConnect.

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Handy Reference Guide to Office Building Construction Starts, US and Canada - Daily Commercial News

A total of 68 major projects were underway from Sodo to South Lake Union at the end of 2016, the most since records began in 2005.

Seattles historic building boom somehow keeps soaring to new heights, and probably wont slow down anytime soon.

Last June, the Downtown Seattle Association found a record number of buildings were under construction, at least since it began counting in 2005.

But that mark didnt last long. In its newest tally, released Thursday, the group found 68 major buildings under construction in the greater downtown area at the end of 2016, a new high-point from at least the previous 11 years.

The construction nearly doubles the number of buildings under way at the end of 2015, and is up slightly from the 65 projects counted last spring. At the peak of the previous building cycle, before the recession hit, the downtown region had 51 major buildings under construction; during the downturn, there were just 12.

Development is expected to remain steady or perhaps even increase slightly this year, based on plans submitted to the city. And developers have a vision to keep up that pace through at least 2019, though many of those future projects exist mostly on paper and could still fall through if the current boom goes bust.

The semi-annual report covers the full core of the city, spanning from Sodo to South Lake Union, and from Lower Queen Anne to Capitol Hill, with projects most tightly packed in South Lake Union. It doesnt chronicle the full construction frenzy spanning the entire city but Seattle as a whole has the most construction cranes of any city in America.

So what is everyone building here? Apartments, mostly.

About two-thirds of the buildings under construction are residential, and while a couple here and there are condos (which are homes for ownership), nearly all will be rental units. Greater downtown can expect about 6,000 new units to open this year, 66 percent more than any year since at least 2005. Seattle as a whole is expecting nearly twice as many apartments to open this year than in any year in the citys history.

The current total of 47 residential developments downtown easily tops the previous year-end high of 34 in 2014. During the recession, there was one point when only four residential buildings were underway.

Most of the other big buildings are offices and you can probably guess which company theyre mostly for. Of the 2.5 million square feet of new workspace added downtown last year, an amazing 69 percent was for Amazon. The behemoth is on pace to top 10 million square feet in Seattle by the end of the decade.

By the end of the year, downtown as a whole had 5.4 million square feet of office under construction, which was actually down a tick from the year before, although there is another 6.5 million square feet in the pipeline for the rest of the decade. Google and Facebook are expanding downtown while Weyerhaeuser just moved in last year.

Lastly, hotels are making a bit of a comeback downtown, with a couple big new projects underway and a total of 6,000 rooms planned after very little activity earlier in the decade.

The construction continues to be an ever-present flashpoint for Seattleites.

Plenty of people like it since the work creates more apartments (which, in theory, could help finally ease soaring rents) and more offices for the regions growing workforce. But plenty of people hate that it represents a rapidly changing Seattle that is transforming into more of a big-city metropolis not to mention the constant headaches trying to get around construction roadblocks.

A recent poll of Millennials in Seattle found they were evenly split with half saying the growth was a good thing, and half saying the construction should slow down.

Another point of animosity is the sense that developers are getting rich at the expense of neighborhood character. The downtown report found developers were putting up $4.4 billion worth of buildings at the end of 2016, also a record and up 27 percent from the pre-recession high.

The most expensive project to finish up last year was Amazons $250 million Day One tower in South Lake Union. The priciest one still under construction is The Mark, a $450 million office and hotel tower scheduled to open in a few months on 5th Avenue.

The biggest development in the pipeline is the $1.6 billion expansion to the Washington State Convention Center, which could break ground as soon as this year.

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Record construction frenzy sweeps downtown Seattle; more building to come - The Seattle Times

The future 51,850-square-foot two-story building is already more than 50 percent pre-leased.

Henderson, Nev.Stable Development recently announced the construction of a 51,850-square-foot building in Henderson, Nev. The project will house a combination of retail, medical and professional office space. The developer plans to break ground in the second quarter of 2017. The two-story structure will be known as the Seven Hill Plaza Building IV.

Located at Seven Hills Drive and St. Rose Parkway, on 2.5 acres, the development will afford access to theeastbound lanes of St. Rose Parkway, the largest and most traveled east/west highway in Henderson. Seven Hill Plaza Building IV will be within walking distance of the St. Rose Hospital, Sienna Campus, the upcoming Costco location, as well as many neighboring restaurants and shopping areas. The new project will feature a two-story concrete covered parking structure.

More than half of the new building has been pre-leased.

We are delighted to not only announce the Henderson project, but the fact that it is already over 50 percent pre-leased reflects the quality of the project. Stable Development is expanding its unique business model to new markets, including California, Texas, Kansas and New York, said Lance Bradford, founder of Stable Development, in a prepared statement.

Seven Hill Plaza Building IV is scheduled for completion by the end of 2017.

Images courtesy of Stable Development

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Stable Development to Break Ground on Nevada Office Building - Commercial Property Executive

Top-quality office buildings now under construction in Victoria will help meet demand from the booming technology sector and provide new space for hundreds of provincial government employees.

The expanding office market unfolds as the capital region basks in a rosy economic climate, where an unemployment rate of 4.7percent is one of the lowest in the country.

Building-permit values released Wednesday by Statistics Canada also show that construction values in January jumped by 40 per cent to $93.5 million, compared with $66.6 million during the same month a year ago.

Downtown condominium and rental housing is under construction in response to the regions ultra-hot housing market, bringing vitality to the core and supporting businesses and services in that area.

Anne Tanner, managing director of Cushman & Wakefield Ltd.s Victoria and Vancouver Island office, said three technology clients have signed pre-lease agreements for 50,000 square feet of space in 1515 Douglas St., currently under construction across from city hall.

That really shows the substantial base that we have here on the technology side, Tanner said.

Its one example of what Tanner calls an evolution in downtowns office market.

Typical government office space is also being utilized by the leading, fun, funky tech sector, she said. About 12,000 provincial government staff work in Victoria, with Crown corporation employees in addition to that.

As technology firms move up to better-quality office space, it frees up other less costly categories to be filled by other companies, Tanner said.

Rates for Class A office space downtown run up to $30 per square foot, Tanner said, and its getting harder to come by. Downtowns Class A vacancy rate is only 1.07 per cent, according a recent Colliers International real estate report.

The Douglas Street building is part of a Jawl Enterprises project that includes a 13-storey tower at 750 Pandora Ave., where B.C. Investment Management Corp. will fill 184,000 square feet. The Pandora tower will be ready by year end, said Robert Jawl. The neighbouring building at 1515 Douglas St. is to open by spring 2018.

Also under construction is the mixed-use Capital Park, on 6.2acres bordered by Superior, Michigan and Menzies streets behind the legislature.

Jawl Development Ltd. and Concert Properties are partners in the project, which is fuelling the local economy with about 200workers on site daily. To date, building permits with a construction value of $50.6 million have been issued at city hall for that property, a municipal official said. Capital Park features two main office buildings.

More than 500,000 square feet of new office space will be available through Capital Park and the Douglas-Pandora buildings, Colliers said.

A total of 700 workers from the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Children and Family Development will move into the first office building late this year.

We are really excited about how the buildings are shaping up, Jawl said. This is always avery rewarding juncture in a projects life cycle.

A flexible workspace design will maximize the use of space in the office building, said a provincial official.

The lease agreement runs for 20 years with options to extend it to 40 years. Lease rates are not being disclosed, but the official said the rate is based on market rents.

The province also plans to lease 55,000 square feet in Capital Parks second office building, the official said. The province did not disclose what ministry staff will use the space.

Ministry of Environment workers are currently located at 2975 Jutland Rd. The province will continue leasing that site. Ministry of Children and Family staff are now in offices at 765-777 s St., and that space will be vacated.

Also on Capital Park, a Menzies Street building will house a Red Barn Market store and a James Bay library branch on the ground level, expected to open by January 2018. Above, 53 rental units above should be ready by the end of August, according to Jawl.

Jawl said the company hopes to start construction on the second 130,000-square-foot office building in September. It will take two years to complete.

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New office buildings filling fast - Times Colonist

PM's office strongly denies Arutz Sheva report that Netanyahu instructed a freeze on thousands units in Yesha he had approved.

Arutz Sheva Staff, 08/03/17 16:38

Reuters

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ordered Housing and Construction Minister Yoav Galant to freeze thousands of housing units which Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman had recently approved for construction in Judea and Samaria, it was reported Wednesday.

Netanyahu and Liberman had issued two announcements that a total of 5,500 housing units would be constructed in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria shortly after US President Donald Trump's inauguration in January. 2,000 of the units were to be available to be marketed immediately.

The Defense Ministry said in a statement at the time of the second announcement that The decision comes as part of the resumption of normal life in Judea and Samaria and in order to provide a real answer to living and housing needs in the region.

We are in a new time period in which life in Judea and Samaria is returning to normal, and we will provide an appropriate response to the needs of the residents of the region, said Liberman.

A partial list of communities where housing units have been approved includes: 700 in Alfei Menashe, 200 in Oranit, 50 in Nofim, 650 in Beit Aryeh, 30 in Efrat, 150 in Nokdim, 150 in Givat Ze'ev, 70 in Shavei Shomron, 100 in Karnei Shomron, 100 in Shilo, 100 in Metzudot Yehuda, 80 in Kfar Eldad, and 650 in Beitar Illit.

President Trump asked Netanyahu to "hold back on on settlements for a little bit" when the Prime Minister visited him last month.

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PM's office: Building freeze report is false - Arutz Sheva

The Cannon House Office Building, completed in 1908, is the oldest congressional office building as well as a significant example of the Beaux-Arts style of architecture. It occupies a site south of the United States Capitol bounded by Independence Avenue, First Street, New Jersey Avenue, and C Street S.E. In 1962 the building was named for former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Joseph Gurney Cannon.[1]

The first congressional office buildings were constructed immediately after the turn of the 20th century to relieve overcrowding in the United States Capitol. Previously, members who wanted office space had to rent quarters or borrow space in committee rooms. In March 1901 Congress authorized Architect of the Capitol Edward Clark to draw plans for fireproof office buildings for both the House and Senate adjacent to the Capitol grounds. In March 1903 the acquisition of sites and construction of the buildings were authorized. In April 1904 the prominent New York City architectural firm of Carrre and Hastings was retained. Thomas Hastings took charge of the House Office Building project, while John Carrre oversaw the construction of an almost identical office building (now named the Russell Senate Office Building) for the United States Senate. Their Beaux Arts designs were restrained complements to the Capitol.[1]

The Cannon Building was occupied during the 60th Congress in December 1907. By 1913, however, the House had outgrown the available office space, and fifty-one rooms were added to the original structure by raising the roof and constructing a fifth floor[note 1] that is visible only from the enclosed court. Originally there were 397 offices and fourteen committee rooms in the Cannon Building; the 1932 remodeling resulted in 85 two- or three-room suites, 10 single rooms, and 23 committee rooms.[1]

Architecturally, the elevations are divided into a rusticated base and a colonnade with an entablature and balustrade. The colonnades with thirty-four Doric columns that face the Capitol are echoed by pilasters on the sides of the building. The Cannon Building is faced with marble and limestone; while the Senate's the Russell Building's base and terrace are gray granite.[1]

Modern for its time, the building initially included such facilities as forced-air ventilation systems, steam heat, individual lavatories with hot and cold running water and ice water, telephones, and electricity. Both the Cannon Building and the Russell Building are connected to the Capitol by underground passages.[1]

Of special architectural interest is the rotunda. Eighteen Corinthian columns support an entablature and a coffered dome, whose glazed oculus floods the rotunda with natural light. Twin marble staircases lead from the rotunda to an imposing Caucus Room, which features Corinthian pilasters, a full entablature, and a richly detailed ceiling.[1]

The Cannon Tunnel connects the Cannon House Office Building to the Capitol. The tunnel is lined with artwork from the annual Congressional Art Competition for high school students.[2] Branching off the entrance to Cannon Tunnel is a separate tunnel to the Longworth House Office Building, and entrances to a cafeteria, shoe shiner/cobbler, and a Legislative Resource Center. Unlike the tunnels from the Capitol to the Senate Office Buildings and the Rayburn tunnel, the Cannon Tunnel has no subway line, and is primarily a pedestrian pathway.[3]

In January 2015, a top-to-bottom renovation of the Cannon House Office Building began. Completion is expected to take ten years and cost $752.7 million. Initially, renovation will be focused on upgrading the building utilities, but will progress on to a wing-by-wing exterior and interior reconstruction. According to Bill Weidemeyer (Superintendent of the House), the building "is plagued by safety, health, environmental and operational issues that are rapidly worsening. Many of the buildings systems are original from the 1908 construction."[4]

This article incorporatespublic domain material from the United States Government document "Cannon House Office Building, Architect of the Capitol".

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Cannon House Office Building - Wikipedia

Louisville Business First

Norton Commons is getting a new office building Louisville Business First Osborn previously constructed a similar-sized office building at 9418 Norton Commons Blvd. that now has multiple tenants. "We think office is a natural component to add in there," Weinberg said of the building. Tyler Glick, owner of Louisville-based ...

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Norton Commons is getting a new office building - Louisville Business First

Michelle Willard , USA TODAY NETWORK Tennessee Published 9:01 a.m. CT March 7, 2017 | Updated 8 hours ago

A rendering of Fountains at the Gateway. Phase one of Fountains at Gateway is under construction and includes a four-story, 100,000-square-foot office building and the 11,000-square-foot retail building. The office building will be completed in late summer and the retail building by the end of the year.(Photo: Submitted)

More businesses are coming to theFountains at Gateway, developer Scott Graby said Tuesday morning.

Tressler & Associatesand Tressler Title have leased a 1,713-square-foot office space for the firms new Murfreesboro offices on the ground floor of One Fountain Plaza, the recently completed 105,500-square-foot office building at Fountains at Gateway, saidGraby, president of Hearthstone Properties.

Tressler & Associates and Tressler Title and have an excellent reputation in Middle Tennessee, and were delighted to welcome them to Fountains at Gateway, Graby said. As Murfreesboro continues its rapid growth, Tressler & Associates and Tressler Title will help fill the ever-growing need for residential and commercial real estate legal and transaction services in Rutherford County.

Fountains at Gateway is a 31-acre, Class A mixed-use development located at 1500 Medical Center Parkway in Murfreesboro.

Phase one of the development includes a four-story, 105,500-square-foot office building and two retail buildings totaling 33,200 square feet. Office building construction is now complete and site work is nearing completion.

The first retail building, with 11,200-square-feet of space, is under construction and will be completed in spring 2017.

Todd Tressler(Photo: submitted)

Tressler Title joins Burger Republic, Tom+Chee, Fuzzys Taco Shopand Nothing Bundt Cakes in leasing retail space at Fountains at Gateway.Board & Brushopened in January.

"Scott Graby and his team have done a great job assembling an impressive list of brands at Fountains at Gateway,"said Todd Tressler, owner and founder.

Tressler & Associates has served clients since 2009 in many areas of the law, including estate planning, business law, civil and criminal litigation, and real estate.Tressler Title is a full-service real estate closing company offering concierge-level service to the real estate industry.

With shared offices in Lebanon, Mt. Juliet and Nashville, the Tressler Team is expanding its physical presence into Murfreesboro.The firms have established a temporary office at Heritage Executive Suites in Murfreesboro until their new offices at Fountains are completed this summer.

While the Tressler Team has been an active part of the vibrant business scene in Murfreesboro for several years, we're looking forward to serving new and existing clients from the heart of the Gateway business district for years to come," Tressler said.

Developed byHearthstone Properties, the $80 million development will include 400,000 square feet of office space in three office buildings, 70,000 square feet of retail in three free-standing buildings and street-level retail space in the office buildings, as well as a 100-unit apartment community and a mid-size business hotel.

Reach Michelle Willard at mwillard@dnj.com or 615-278-5164 and on Twitter @michwillard.

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Tressler & Associates, Tressler Title lease space at Fountains at Gateway - The Daily News Journal

Ten months after the Union-Tribune moved downtown, its former building in Mission Valley has undergone a radical transformation on the way to becoming a 330,000-square-foot creative office center.

Called Ampersand, the two-building complex at Interstate 8 and state Route 163 has been gutted, its presses scrapped. Construction is moving forward this month with completion of the first phase early next year.

Carlos Carrasquillo, studio director of Wolcott Architecture Interiors in Culver City, is the designer and C.W. Driver is the contractor of the $35 million project.

Its a very visible building that everyone in San Diego seems to been touched by, said developer Casey Brown. Personally, I toured the facility when I was in the third grade, which is kind of fun. My grandparents used to bring me down to get end rolls of paper to color on. Being born and raised in San Diego, those are my experiences. The experiences that we hear are just ongoing.

The first phase involves the five-story office building on the east. With the newspaper offices interior walls, ceiling tiles and carpet removed, exterior light floods in from all directions.The exposed concrete ceiling waffle pattern and duct system will remain in view to create the cool, industrial look that appeals to young upstart companies.

The second phase, tracking about 90 days after the first, will transform the three-floor printing plant building into a U-shaped complex with 14-foot-high windows and a dramatic north-facing open-air courtyard cut out of the center. Former loading docks will become outdoor terraces and a full-scale, 8,000-square-foot gym, showers and locker rooms will be built on the southeast corner.

Other amenities will include a craft coffee cafe, valet parking, concierge services and possibly a restaurant in the former gas station and vehicle maintenance building at the southwest corner of the site.

The entrance will shift from the north to a pedestrian courtyard between the two buildings and a former outdoor cafe deck will become The Treehouse with hanging chairs and hammocks around a specimen ficus tree. There will be nine patios and 64,000 square feet of outdoor collaborative space and an amphitheater for multifunction gatherings.

A third phase will include a 130-unit apartment building on the north side of the property but its timing is flexible, depending on market conditions with several other residential projects coming online in the next couple of years.

Matt Carlson, senior vice president at CBRE brokerage, said his leasing team is fielding calls from potential tenants from all over the county who want a central location but not necessarily in downtown. He said they are asking about renting spaces from 20,000 square feet to the entire print building.

A lot of these creative-type tenants are the more collaborative type, Carlson said. They are looking for brick and timber, a different office experience.

That old-style industrial legacy is rather limited in San Diego, considering that the entire county population in 1940 totaled only about 300,000, less than a tenth of todays count.

Built in 1973, the U-T building, designed by Frank L. Hope Jr.s architectural firm and built by M.H. Golden Construction, was all brick on the outside and concrete on the inside. The print building is as strong as a bomb shelter, Carlson said, because it had to take the load of the presses and other equipment.

Theres just nothing like it, he said. Not only is it perfectly located and has a large block of space, theres not a lot of new (office) construction. Its totally unique compared to any other offering thats out there.

Casey said the project is being developed in the shadow of many others throughout Mission Valley.

The biggest, of course, is the potential redevelopment of the Qualcomm Stadium site into a soccer-driven, mixed-use complex.

But major plans already are approved for transforming the Riverwalk Golf Course into housing and Westfield has indicated long-term interest in adding residential and other uses at its Mission Valley mall.

Civita is building out its 4,780-unit housing project with some retail and office and a major public park between SR163 and Interstate 805.

Brown has been active in downtown development but sees Mission Valley as a land of opportunity as well.

We think there will be more room to run here than in most of the other markets, he said. Its been passed over.

He acknowledged that traffic can be a problem at rush hour and winter rains can cause isolating flooding. But he said the Ampersand location has escaped relatively unscathed and the residential uses planned around it will generate less traffic than the offices currently in place.

Carlson said tenants employees will like the easy access to the trolley lines and bike and walking trails along the San Diego River. Its the same story for other in-town neighborhoods that surround the central business district.

People are living and working in those areas because its easier than being in Carmel Valley, he said.

roger.showley@sduniontribune.com; (619) 293-1286; Twitter: @rogershowley

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Creative offices reuse old UT building - The San Diego Union-Tribune